Happiness, by Accident
by Lotus-chan
Summary: For hundreds of years Sasuke's family has been under a curse that leads to their untimely death if left without the protection of a demon guardian. Although initially unwanted, Sasuke will find that his demon will change his life forever. NaruSasuNaru, AU. Trigger Warnings for suicidal ideation, offensive language, and domestic abuse.
1. Happiness, Nonexistent

AN: This was an experiment in writing in first person and present tense, both of which are new to me but the prologue is the only part of the fic which will be in present tense. I'm trying hard to get as far as possible with this but this fic is sort of writing itself. I only have a rough idea of where this'll end up so I hope that you will all be patient with me and enjoy the outcome.

Heads up: NaruSasuNaru, AU, Sasuke POV, eventual romance and action. Also my first Naruto fic.  
Trigger Warnings: for suicidal ideation, offensive language, and domestic abuse.

Happiness, by Accident  
Prologue  
By: Lotuschan

I'm tired.

Not physically tired but… in every other way you can imagine. I'm tired of my life; of feeling like I'm trapped in some kind of cage and can't get out. Tired of hearing my parents, even my mother who's usually so soft spoken, screaming at each other in the kitchen below my darkened bedroom. Tired because I know how it'll end.

He can't hit my mother, their lifestyle won't allow it. He's the CEO of a multinational company and my mother lives the life of a socialite; she's the face of the family. It would raise too many questions if that face were damaged. I can hear him stomping up the stairs now.

He can't touch my mother, but I'm fair game.

The light comes on and I know that he's here. "Sasuke! Where the fuck are you hiding?!" I don't answer. Nothing I say will spare me what's to come. It's happened enough times already that I've stopped trying to hide; to run away. I hear him round the bed to find me sitting on the floor, staring out the window. He grabs me by the hair and lifts me to my knees. "I asked you a question! Answer me when I speak to you, you ungrateful brat!" He shoves my head against the window sill and the sudden unexpected impact leaves me seeing stars.

"Damnit Sasuke! Why couldn't it have been you?!" He kicks me in the stomach and I wince painfully, stifling a cry. I hear my mother start pleading for me but tune her out immediately. I can't stand to hear her begging him.

Don't misunderstand me, I was never a weakling. I never used to just take my father's abuse without a fight, but a few broken bones, a concussion, and a couple trips to the hospital later, I realized that fighting back was only making it worse. The doctors are no help, they're all on my father's payroll, and running away is no use because he always finds me. He was always there to remind me with blood and pain that I could never get away because although he didn't want me, he was too concerned with appearances to find losing me acceptable either. My brother was the only one who could stand between him and me but after Itachi died there was nothing to stop him.

Another kick to the ribs knocks the wind outta me and as I struggle to breathe I feel his hand in my hair again, lifting me up. "If Itachi had lived, I wouldn't need your useless sorry ass around!" My brother… That's what this is really all about. His fist connects with my face and I taste blood. "Worthless!" He hits me in the face again and the force of it sends me into the wall behind me. There's more blood in my mouth and the shock of the punch causes me to gasp and choke, leaving me coughing blood onto the floor and gasping for breath. I feel something hard connect with the back of my head and I hear my mother scream as I crumple to the floor.

My hand is in my line of sight. I stare at it disconnectedly while the arguing continues above me. The scars on the inside of my wrist remind me of my one moment of desperation; the last time I tried to run away. The scars remind me every day that I'm trapped; that I can't run away from this, that not even death will give me refuge. Tears of frustration well up in my eyes and I try to remind myself that it's better this way. It's better when I let him blame me for Itachi's death, better when I don't resist, because the beatings are always so much worse when I do.

I hear a loud thump and look up to see my mother fall to the floor. My blood runs cold… he's never dared hit her before! But looking up was a mistake, Father turns around and kicks me in the face. I fall onto my back, stifling another cry and holding my face in my hands. I feel his hands wrap around my neck and I can't breathe. "What was that look just now? Do you think you can defy me?"

He uses a hand to pull one of mine away and as I look into his enraged face, I feel all the fight in me leave me with a short exhalation. He's not making it easy for me to breathe and I find myself hoping that he gets carried away. I… I don't really want to die but … but I'm just so _tired_…

He backhands me and I spit a bit more blood onto the carpet. "Answer me!"

I grit my teeth against the pain and make a few hollow gasps trying to get some much needed air into my lungs. The pressure on my neck ebbs slightly and after a few choking breaths I go completely limp under him and stare back up at his face defiantly, in spite of my resolve not to resist. "Just kill me." I challenge, knowing he won't do it.

He sneers and backhands me again, "As attractive as that notion sounds, don't think you'll escape your responsibilities so easily! You're the Uchiha heir now, and you _will_ provide me with grandsons to give this company to because I will not leave it to you." … and that's exactly why I'm still alive. He gets up and leaves me there. My mother, too terrified of the violence she's just witnessed, gets up and runs out of the room before he can reach the door. It's alright, he doesn't allow her to comfort me anyway.

I take several shallow breaths, my chest hurts too much to expand my lungs any more than that and slowly curl up into a ball, waiting for the pain to diminish. I reflect that it could've been much worse. He went easy on me today…

I can't take much more of this. I'm not the same person I once was and I can't stand who I've become. I open my eyes, not knowing when I'd closed them and stare at the scars on my wrist again. As a familiar desperation wells up inside me dark thoughts begin to enter my mind. Perhaps I only need to find more creative ways of running away… maybe then I will be free…


	2. Happiness, Elusive

AN: Ok, the first thing I want to say is that I hope you guys will take my characterization of Sasuke with a grain of salt. It's been a very long time since I've been where Sasuke is mentally and it was difficult to see things through that dark filter again. This being a first person narrative, it's also a bit more difficult for me to show you what's going through his mind than to just tell you about it had this been third person. I'm still treating this fic like an experiment but I'm doing my best to make it a fun read and hope you all like the outcome. ^_^

Heads up: Warnings and Triggers remain the same throughout the entire fic. Also change of tenses! From now on all chapters will be past tense.

Happiness, by Accident  
By: Lotus-chan  
Ch01: Happiness, Elusive

I don't know what instinct woke me that morning but I cracked open my eyes just as the door to my room swung open. My father stood there for a moment, looking at me. I hadn't moved from where he'd left me the night before and was still on the floor at the foot of my bed. Even now I ached all over and shifted only my eyes to look at him. He sneered, "You know the drill, Sasuke. You're prohibited from leaving the house until the bruises clear up. I've cancelled your lessons for the rest of the week to prevent your appearance from offending anyone. I'm leaving for Boston this afternoon and taking your mother with me. If I get any reports of you acting up I _will_ make you regret it when I get back."

He walked away without another word and I let out the breath I didn't even know I was holding. The wash of relief however, was short lived. I had to get up now and make myself scarce until he was gone because I did not want him to decide, for whatever reason, that I hadn't had enough. I pushed myself up slowly and gasped painfully, wrapping an arm around my chest and resting my forehead against the bloody carpet. Wow… that was hurting a lot worse than I'd expected.

I took a moment to just breathe and then hauled myself up into a sitting position and rested the side of my head against the wall, feeling slightly dizzy. My head hurt but the epicenter of that pain was at the back of my head where I'd been hit last night. My eyes drifted to a small trophy I'd won for something or other a few years back, lying on the floor not too far from me and I knew then what I'd been hit with. Goddamn piece of junk…

I pulled myself to my feet stiffly, bracing myself against the wall and leaned against it as I slowly made my way out of my room, kicking that gold-plated piece of crap under my dresser as I walked passed it. The hallway was empty, and I made my way to the bathroom as quickly as I could manage. Once the door was locked behind me, I rested against it for a moment and finally caught myself in the mirror. It looked about as bad as it hurt.

My left eye was slightly swollen and there was a lot of bruising around the socket. There were trails of dried blood coming from my nose and mouth but luckily the former didn't feel broken, just bruised. One of the hits to my face had opened up a cut on my lip and above my left eyebrow but they had scabbed over during the night. I pushed away from the door and tried to slip my shirt off over my head but winced as the bruised muscles in my chest protested the movement. Unbuttoning the shirt instead, I went to the sink and turned the faucet on.

Washing my face and brushing my teeth took only a few minutes and when I looked up again, I saw the bruises I'd been expecting coloring the pale skin of my neck, chest and abdomen. I stared at them disconnectedly for a minute before dismissing them and undressing the rest of the way. I turned on the spray in the shower and stepped inside, intending to stay there as long as I possibly could.

As the soothing warmth of the water plastered the hair to my face I felt myself finally begin to relax. But instead of regaining the inner calm I had hopped for, I felt myself trembling. Bringing a shaking hand up to my face, I pushed back my bangs and watched the water as it swirled around the drain at my feet. Why? Why couldn't I get that back?

I'd been there last night when _he_ had entered my room; that frozen place inside me where I couldn't be touched, where nothing that happened on the outside mattered. When I was there, the pain couldn't reach me, nothing he could do could hurt me as badly as I was hurting now. A pain that had nothing to do with my physical wounds was threatening to overwhelm me and I reached out to the tiled wall for support before I crumpled beneath the weight of it.

I wanted… no, I _needed_ an end to this. I wasn't going to last much longer this way but… I didn't know what to do or where to go. I felt like I had tried everything. There was no one to turn to, no one who could help me; I was trapped in this big house alone… My eyes opened as the realization struck me. No… there were others trapped here too. For the first time in a long time I felt a tiny spark of hope. Maybe one of them would help me…

000000

After my shower I slipped on my blue bathrobe, left the bathroom and walked quietly down the hall until I reached the central staircase. I peered over the rail of the balcony silently but there was no one in the sitting room downstairs. Climbing down the stairs as fast as I could, making as little noise as possible, I reached the first floor of the house and rushed to the back. I slowed my pace as I heard a few servants talking in the kitchen and passed them quickly without being noticed.

At the back of the house, near the kitchen was a room that was never used. I entered that room and shut the door silently behind me breathing a sigh of relief. If anyone discovered that I'd come here without approval… A chill shot down my spine and I pushed the thought away. Walking to a far corner I slid a hidden panel aside and pulled the short lever within to pop open the trap door on the floor beside me. Lifting it open all the way, I slipped inside and pulled it closed after me.

Climbing down the steel ladder into the cavernous space below the house, I wasn't surprised to see every candle and bowl of incense in the vast room lit. They would be lit constantly for days until my father returned from his business trip and could preside over my ceremony. There were no lights besides them and no electricity. The sheer amount of concentrated magick down here simply would not allow it. I made it down onto the cold steel of the catwalk and treaded silently on my bare feet into the room. This underground chamber beneath the house was only the third home of the Uchiha clan in several hundred years to bear witness to this great secret.

I was standing on the beginning of a maze of catwalks suspended high above the floor of the underground chamber. Below my feet clusters of candles illuminated a sea of lacquered tablets covered in Shinto wards and seals. This was the legacy of my clan. I walked toward a wooden pedestal at the end of the first catwalk and stopped only long enough to pick up the large and heavy tome resting upon it; the book that contained the spell I would need. Hefting it into my arms, I turned onto a section of walkway branching off toward the center of the room.

I glanced over the side of the rail as I walked and considered whether or not there was any irony in the fact that I identified more with the demons trapped below my feet than with the humans above. The tablets below were filled with them. Each captured at different times over the course of several hundred years dating back to the Sengoku era when my clan had first been cursed. It was this curse which drove us to capture these demons in the first place.

After the age of sixteen, the men of the Uchiha clan were cursed with bad luck. It is the sort of luck that makes us prone to accidents with increasing severity as time passes. The ultimate goal of which is our untimely death. In order to counteract this, my ancestors developed a spell with the help of a Shinto priest. After capturing a demon, we bind his life to ours which forces his loyalty and obedience, thereby gaining a guardian to serve and protect us from the curse. I shifted the book to my other arm and raised a hand to the mark on the back of neck remembering how horrified I'd been to see it there yesterday – my sixteenth birthday.

It was the reason my father had been so angry in the first place. He had never intended to perform the ceremony that would give me a demon protector. I looked over the rail again and noticed all the tablets that were cracked down the middle. We no longer had the ability to hunt down and seal demons; the knowledge of which had been lost long ago. As a result the number of cracked and used tablets versus those still intact was growing. In fact, less than a quarter of the tablets in the cavern were still intact and active. My Father hadn't wanted to waste one on me but with Itachi gone I needed to live long enough to marry and have children, otherwise the clan would die with me.

'I don't care if it's selfish but I don't give a damn about the clan.' I thought viciously. My pace slowed as I considered that thought. No… That's not true. I cared about Itachi. I would've done anything for my brother...

I quickly rubbed at my eyes when they began to sting. I couldn't get caught up in memories of my brother right now. I had to get this over with; to put an end to this nightmare I was living. I looked up, blinking back the water from my eyes and picked up my pace. I was almost there.

There was nothing left of me. That was the only reason I'd gone down there to begin with. I couldn't bare the thought of my father giving me a demon protector who would prevent me from ending my own suffering or from allowing the curse to do it for me. To live years and years more of this torture, trapped in this house, with no way out. I despaired at the thought. I stopped as the catwalk brought me over a tablet in the center of the cavern. This tablet was special. It became tradition for every Uchiha to attempt to release the demon within it first before moving on to a second choice. It's because this one was the most coveted, the most powerful out of all those ever captured but no one had ever succeeded in summoning it.

My goal however, was not to bind such a powerful thing to me. I was going to mess the spell up on purpose. Remembering how it had been done during Itachi's ceremony, I put the heavy tome on the floor and opened it to the right page. The magicks involved were so powerful and yet so delicate that many priests in the past had refused to assist us. They had gone on to tell us that if we didn't have the proper respect for the magick or didn't say the spell correctly the spell could backfire on us and kill us, or we could accidently free the demon completely and it would finish us off itself. … My plan was to do that intentionally.

I looked at the first couple pages of the spell which paid respects to the demon and asked the gods for protection and skipped it. Once I got to the page where the important part of the spell began I stood up and realized I'd forgotten to bring a knife. 'Damnit…' I couldn't go back upstairs and risk getting caught… My lip throbbed as I considered my options and I realized that I already had the answer. I bit down hard on my lip and ripped the scab off. The coppery tang of blood on my tongue signaled my success and I brought a finger to my lip to collect it.

Bringing the finger to where I knew the mark on my neck would be, I encircled it to activate the magick behind the spell and leaned over the rail. I bit down again to collect more blood from my lip with my finger and let a few drops fall onto the tablet below. "I, Uchiha Sasuke, heir of the Uchiha clan call upon the magick of this spell to summon my demon protector from its enchanted sleep." I had no wards with me, no priest, no secondary spell caster, no protection of any kind and it sent a thrill through me. This was it. If I woke this demon, I would have it kill me. If it refused to be summoned by me as it had refused every other Uchiha in the past, I would simply move on to the next one until I woke one.

A noise brought my attention back to the tablet below and I caught a glimpse of the last of the paper wards going up in a sudden burst of flame. My eyes widened. It was working..! Kneeling down, I turned back to the spell book and continued reading. "By my blood I release you from your prison and summon you before me. Take your true form and show yourself!" A deafening sound echoed throughout the cavern and I looked through the steel mesh below my feet to see that the lacquered tablet had cracked in two down the middle. I could feel my heart racing and I turned back to the book quickly. "Awaken from your slumber and head the command of your new master!"

The more I read, the more I began to realize how deeply the spell meant to tie the demon to me and I rebelled at the thought. I skipped the next paragraph which pertained to binding it and moved on to the one after, reciting it aloud and felt the catwalk sway as the room shook. This was going to alert the people upstairs that I was down here but hopefully I would be done before they could stop me. I quickly finished the part of the spell pertaining to the demon's eternal servitude and realized that it should have appeared by now. 'Damnit, was this because I skipped that other part?'

A noise from above startled me and I looked up to see my father open the trap door entrance and begin descending down the steel ladder. "Sasuke! What the hell are you doing?!" I stared in horror as I heard the rage in his voice and saw him followed down the ladder by his own demon protector. I turned back to the book. I needed to keep going; I couldn't let him stop me when I had come so far!

But going back to the paragraph I'd originally skipped, I hesitated. I had never intended to bind the demon to me. The only parts of the spell I'd read so far called for its absolute obedience. I needed that if I was going to order it to end my life but if I completed the spell and bound it to me, killing me would be the one order it would not be able to carry out. The purpose of the spell was to establish a demon protector and it looked like I wasn't going to be able to manipulate the spell to suit my needs as easily as I had thought. I hadn't even been able to summon it completely yet!

Not knowing what else to do I turned back to the book and began reading aloud. "By this mortal bone and flesh be made whole once more but yield not your eternal spirit. Take form and arise to serve… and protect…" Damnit! The spell book was hundreds of years old and the next line of text was too badly smudged to make out! The pages rustled in my hands and I looked up. The sheer amount of chakra being released from the tablet below was causing a pseudo wind to scream and buffet against the walls of the underground cavern. Most of the candles below had blown out, plunging the room into semi-darkness. I had to reach out blindly in that darkness and grab the book to prevent it from sliding away as the catwalk swayed dangerously.

In the distance my father had reached the walkways but the way they were violently swaying was slowing him down. I didn't have much time to worry about it though because a red light behind me caught my attention and I turned around in time to see an apparition rise from the tablet below. It floated up through the floor of the catwalk and took form right in front of me.

A bright orange kimono and hakama decorated with a print of red claw marks clothed the semi-translucent humanoid form the light was shaping into. Nine furry tails swayed in the wind as they peeked out from behind him. I looked up into his face to see what appeared to be whisker marks on his pale skin and above them were eyes with cat-like pupils and irises as deep a red as the blood I'd used to summon him. The blond hair falling slightly over those dazed, half-lidded eyes was short and straight, caressing his face as they swayed lazily as if the chaotic wind around him were nothing but a gentle breeze. The fox ears at the top of his head were the last of the evidence that this unexpectedly striking creature before me was without a doubt, not human.

"Sasuke!" I jumped and looked back to find my father had covered more ground than I'd expected given the instability of the catwalk and the wind of pure chakra that was still howling through the cavern. I had forgotten that he'd brought his demon guardian with him, and it was protecting him and helping him advance.

I turned back to the demon in front of me and screamed, "I order you to kill me!" The spell was incomplete so I didn't know if it would obey but I was desperate and running out of options. I heard my father scream in defiance of my request but he was still too far away to stop me. I braced myself and waited but nothing happened. Looking up, the demon was still there. He hadn't moved, still translucent and still looking at me with that dazed, half-lidded gaze. "Damnit, what's wrong?! Why won't you do as I say?"

I looked back at the spell book and tried hard to make out the rest of it. "Protect… protect… your master…?" I was guessing at this point and getting more desperate by the minute. "Be a shield… unto sword or curse… and exist on this mortal plane as… as I… require." I stopped when I noticed the glowing red aura of light surrounding the demon had faded away and was surprised to see him completely solid, no longer looking like a ghost. That last line about the mortal plane must have been what it needed. "Do it now." I begged. The wind had died down and I could hear my father's steps only a few feet away.

He didn't move, but there was an echo in my ear and I heard my own voice like a whisper, '…protect… your master…' "No…" I heard myself say in a small voice. I shook my head and thrust my hands into my still damp hair like I could rip it out in frustration… or defeat. "No, that's not what I want." I felt the touch of a breeze on the skin of my face and looked up in time to see my father's hand being pulled away from me by his demon. Suddenly, I could feel a foreign chakra prickle invisibly along my skin. It sparked in warning and I saw the red glow of it had covered both me and the spell book before it disappeared from sight again.

"It will not allow you to interfere until the spell is complete, master." I looked at the orange mask my father's demon used as a face, startled. I'd never heard him speak before.

My father looked back at me and in his eyes was an intense and unmistakable disdain. "Finish it, Sasuke. I'll decide what to do with you later but make no mistake, you're going to pay dearly for this." With that, he stepped back and crossed his arms to wait.

I looked at the page in the book again feeling as though I had been sentenced to a fate worse than death and it was there in the smudged and yellowed paper waiting to be read aloud. I breathed in carefully and decided to get on with it, knowing that I no longer had a choice. Squinting slightly in the semi-darkness, I tried to make out the words. "Taste my blood and be bound to me through it. Hear my voice and obey no other... Come to me as I call, obedient only to my command… and share with me the strength of your eternity as I offer up the mortality of my flesh."

At this point I was just winging it. I could only make out every other word and I was eager to be done with it. If the spell backfired and blew up in my face, well… all the better. "By the blood that I have offered tie yourself to me forever and protect me from death as I offer up my life and soul to give you strength." I heard my father make a confused sound above me but I didn't stop reading. I knew I wasn't saying it right but it was too late now. "Take my will and make it yours, speak to me in truths and offer me undivided loyalty. Through this spell I command you as your master, reveal your true name, make me one with your life force and take what I have offered to seal this spell and oath from now until forever."

The rustle of fabric beside me surprised me and I watched as the demon finally moved for the first time. He kneeled down next to me and reached out for my face. I pulled back, startled but he raised his other hand and captured my face between them both. I was too stunned to react to what happened next. He leaned forward and captured my lips with his. There was a sound of disgust from above but I was too busy freaking out to pay it any mind. There was a sharp stab at my lower lip and I tried to pull away but his hands held me firm. The demon … was sucking at the cut on my lip. In the time it had taken to complete the spell it had stopped bleeding and he… he needed that blood.

I realized then what was happening. He was obeying his first order. I had offered him blood through the spell and he was taking it. I felt his fang on my lip again, making the cut bigger and winced. He pulled me forward roughly and I had to hold onto him or loose my balance. Tilting my head back he laved at my lips with his tongue and I felt my body shudder. After a moment he pulled back and I noticed there was a bit more awareness in his eyes but they were still slightly dazed and vacant. Then I blinked and touched my lip. The cut was gone!

The hands on my face moved away, bringing my attention back to the creature in front of me. He was looking at me as if lost and that's when I felt his hands roaming my chest and arms as if looking for something. "The mark, Sasuke." I heard my father say, not bothering to hide the disgust in his voice. "He needs your curse mark."

I grabbed the demon's hand as it started drifting towards my lap and drew it up. "It's here." I said to him, pulling his hand towards my neck. His red eyes widened and he yanked the bathrobe down over my shoulder to reveal bare skin as he leaned over me. I tilted my head to one side in order to give him space and felt the sharp claws of his left hand on the other side of my neck holding me gently. I wasn't surprised when I felt his lips on my skin and his searching tongue licking up the circle of blood I'd drawn around the curse seal when the spell had begun.

I closed my eyes at the foreign sensation and felt my heartbeat pick up. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been this close to someone. Close enough to feel the heat of their body against mine. The warm-wet sensation of his tongue on my skin tore another shudder from me and I brought my hands up to hold him as he drank up the dried blood around the mark. 'Naruto.' I blinked my eyes open and realized I'd heard that voice in my head. "Wha…?" Fangs grazed gently against my skin and I heard the voice again, 'You asked for my name. It's Naruto.'

One last lap of his tongue against my skin and a sudden burning pain bowed my spine. I gasped painfully and Naruto pulled up quickly. The curse mark burned! I reached up but stopped just short of touching it. It burned where the blood had been. I felt the burning sensation as it made a complete circle around the curse mark and grit my teeth as I held onto Naruto with my other hand until it was over.

Once the pain began to let up, I breathed a sigh of relief and massaged the area with my hand. The skin really was warmer on that spot and I resolved to get a better look at it later. "What the…" I looked up into the face of my new demon guardian and saw that his eyes were no longer distant or vacant, rather they looked a bit confused. He looked at me and I watched as the realization of his current situation dawned on him. "Oh, crap…" He began inching away from me. "How the heck did you summon me?! And where am I?!"

"Your demon's got quite the mouth on him." I tensed at my father's voice and quickly lifted the robe back over my shoulder, suddenly chilled. He walked around me and approached Naruto, who stood up and glared defiantly at him. "I expect you to teach it the manners befitting a servant of the Uchiha clan."

Naruto sneered, "Kinda full of yourself, aren't you old man?" I blinked and my eyes widened.

My father glared, "…and discipline him for any disrespect." Naruto grinned menacingly as if daring him to try it but my father was suddenly distracted by Naruto's tails as they swayed excitedly behind him. He took another few steps around the demon, eyes widening. Naruto moved with him, staring at him suspiciously as my father inspected him. "Nine..?!" Father walked toward the railing and leaned over to see the cracked tablet beneath us where Naruto had been imprisoned. I'd seen my father angry a lot in my life but this was the most shaken I'd seen him since my brother's death.

"How?" he asked turning to look at me. "How did you do it?" He walked over to me and hauled me to my feet by the collar of my robe. "How damnit?!" I took hold of his arms as he shook me. I was starting to panic, my robe was coming undone and my father had the same crazed look in his eyes that he'd had last night. "That's the Kyuubi's tablet! No one's ever been able to summon him before! How is it that a failure like you managed when even Itachi…!" He stopped and stared at me with that chilling look before he raised his fist and I closed my eyes in anticipation.

Nothing happened. I opened my eyes to see Naruto's hand on my father's wrist, holding back his fist. I hadn't even heard him move. He was baring his fangs and growling deeply as my father's demon watched from behind, ready to move at any moment. "Take back the hand if you don't want to lose it." Naruto's warning prompted the other demon to take a step closer.

Father shook his head and said over his shoulder, "It's alright, Tobi." He yanked his wrist away from Naruto and let me go. "I forgot about this new inconvenience." He said it looking at Naruto but… there was something in his face as he looked at the demon that I couldn't identify.

That's when I realized I was two seconds short of flashing everyone. I quickly moved to fix my robe when a loud bang echoed throughout the cavern and the catwalk listed violently. One of the thick cables holding this section of the catwalk suspended above the floor had snapped. I felt a clawed hand reach out and pull me back as another cable snapped and swung dangerously close to where I'd been. The second cable however had done the trick. The catwalk banged loudly as one end of it fell several feet and got caught on a separate walkway below us.

I felt Naruto's arm around my waist as he pulled my back to his chest and held onto the railing for support to keep us from sliding down. There was a screeching sound of metal on metal as the catwalk grazed along the side of the one below us. I saw my father and Tobi as they slid forward a few feet before the demon recaptured his grip on the railing. He was holding onto my father in much the same way Naruto was holding me. "What the hell?" I heard Naruto say above me. "You stupid humans really are cursed, aren't you?"

The screeching stopped when the catwalk gave a last lurch and finally pitched forward vertically as it came free. Naruto cursed and held onto me as it fell. A loud reverberating crash shook the silence of the cavern as one end of the walkway hit the ground. The vibrations that went up the catwalk caused the metal structure to groan loudly and we both looked up to see another of the cables ready to come free from the ceiling. Naruto and Tobi both let go of the railings simultaneously and he held onto me as we slid down to the floor of the cavern.

Once our feet were on the floor, Naruto yanked me forward just as both of the cables gave under the extra weight and that entire section of the catwalk fell to the floor with several loud crashes. Naruto looked behind us and breathed a quick sigh before turning to inspect me for wounds and stopped suddenly. "Um…" For a confused moment I didn't understand why his cheeks had gone red but when he turned his head to the side and reached out to close my bathrobe I felt my own blush heat my face up to my ears.

I snatched the robe away, "I don't need your help, _thanks_." I said, tying the robe up quickly.

Naruto looked at me then back at the catwalk, "Oh? I think you need all the help you can get." He said crossing his arms and sparing me another glance.

For some reason I felt an embarrassed sort of anger welling up inside me for the first time in a long time. "I don't remember asking for your opinion." The sudden rush of emotion through me was thrilling; heady. I'd been so long feeling nothing at all… except maybe fear.

Naruto looked at me for a split second and then smirked, "I give it free of charge, bastard." There was no real malice in his voice and I realized he was testing the waters; trying to figure out how to react to me while still being himself and I felt that thrill again. The desire to rise to his bait, to give as good as I got.

"Sasuke!" My father called, distracting me. I turned to find him a few feet away and a small sense of disappointment crept up inside me to see him standing there unharmed. "Get back up to the house. The two of us together in this place is a recipe for disaster. I'll deal with you and _that_," he said indicating Naruto, "later." With that he started walking towards a ladder on the far side of the room, the one that led up to the trap door.

"Kind of an asshole, isn't he?" Naruto said next to me, glaring at my father's back and I felt the beginnings of a small smile tug at my lips. The comfortable silence that followed however was interrupted when Naruto's hand reached out and grabbed mine. He turned it up, exposing the scars on the inside of my wrist. "So this is how you were able to summon me."

I pulled my wrist back, "What the hell?!"

"I thought I saw them before but I had to be sure." He said indicating the scars.

I glared at him and folded my arms over my chest self-consciously. "They're none of your business." I said angrily.

Naruto glared back at me. "Yes, they are. Because maybe you have a death wish but I don't and seeing as how I'm stuck with you, I'm not interested in knowing you plan to do that again." He stopped abruptly and shook his head as if it hurt him.

I choose to ignore it. "It has nothing to do with you!"

Naruto ran both hands back and forth through his hair quickly as if trying to dispel a headache. "What are you, stupid?" he said in frustration. Grabbing my hand quickly, he started pulling me toward the ladder. "C'mon, we got a lot to talk about."

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AN02: I'll try to have the next chapter out by this coming Friday. If you guys liked it or even if you didn't, please drop me a review and let me know. It encourages me to keep going and helps me fix things that seem off. Thanks ^_^


	3. Happiness, Defined

Heads up: All Warnings and Triggers remain.

Happiness, by Accident  
By: Lotus-chan  
Ch02: Happiness, Defined

Naruto followed me into my room still rubbing the back of his head and I couldn't ignore it anymore. "What's wrong?" I asked, trying not to sound too concerned.

He leaned against my dresser and brought the hand forward to cover and press against his left eye as if he had a migraine. "It's just a lot of information… Everything's changed since I went into that tablet. Computers, cell phones, airplanes, western clothing, cities made of metal and concrete…" he brought his other hand up to rub against his other eye.

"Wait," I said surprised. "How do you know about all those things?"

He dropped a hand to glare at me with one eye, "I drank your blood, moron. I know a lot of what you know, including some stuff about you but… you did a crappy job with the spell and it's all a mess in my head right now."

"Really? You mean 'thoroughly confused' isn't your natural state?" He growled at me but even as I said it my mind was racing. Exactly what was it that he knew or didn't know about me?

He blinked a few times as he drew his other hand away and looked at me. "Damn, what happened to you? You get hit by a car or something?" he said, his gaze lingering on my chest. I looked down to see that my robe had opened up again to reveal part of my chest and the bruises that colored it. What had me staring however, was the fact that the bruises were already yellowed and fading.

I quickly opened up the robe a bit more to see that the bruises on my stomach were in the same condition. Ignoring the weird look on Naruto's face I walked up next to him to look at my face in the mirror above my dresser. The swelling around my eye was gone and most of the bruises were either completely gone or nearly there. "That's impossible." I said touching a particularly nasty bruise on my chest that had made getting off the floor this morning especially painful. It had been tender and dark purple a few hours ago, now it was the yellow/green of an old bruise well on it's way to completely healed. "I got these only last night."

"…What?" I barely had a moment to register the fear in Naruto's voice before he pulled me toward him and started running his hands over the bruises on my skin.

I pulled away quickly and drew my robe closed, "What the hell..?!"

"That's my chakra…" Naruto started as if it was normal for perfect strangers feel each other up like that and there were more important things to talk about. "Why the hell is my chakra inside you?"

I suppressed the heat that threatened to fill my cheeks from the way he'd said that. "I dunno, dumbass! You're my demon now, maybe that's got something to do with it." I replied sarcastically.

But he was shaking his head even before I finished speaking. "No, no, I know that spell. It's not supposed to do that. I may be tied to you now but my chakra should still be my own. I have to protect you but I do it physically, from the outside not from… argh!" Naruto shoved his hands back into his hair in frustration and suddenly a red whirlwind of pure chakra surrounded him and he abruptly disappeared.

I stood there for a moment in my empty room trying to understand what the hell just happened. "Naruto?" There was no answer except silence. My heart sped up. I was alone again. I hadn't realized how comfortable his presence had made me until that moment. Where… where the hell had he gone? "Naruto get back here now!"

Another whirlwind of red chakra and the blonde materialized out of thin air right where he'd been before. He was holding a book through the sleeves of his kimono with both hands. "Geez, Sasuke. I was only gone for a sec." He grumbled placing the book on my bed. I felt myself breathe easier and was embarrassed to admit that being separated from him even for a moment had made me nervous. Gods, was I that desperate for someone's company?

I walked closer as he flipped the pages through his sleeves and I noticed it was the spell book I'd used to summon him. "Why are you touching it like that?" I asked, mildly curious.

"It's because I _can't_ touch it. The book is warded but the spell's kinda old. If it had been new I wouldn't have been able to get near it… Aha! Here it is." He said as he found the right page and pointed to a portion of the spell I'd used to summon him. "It's right here." He said looking back at me. "Your clan had always been freaked by the idea that after tying us together, we demons might try to take you over or something so they made sure that we were tied to you and vulnerable to you but not vice versa." I looked at the part of the spell he was pointing to and felt my stomach bottom out.

"I can't read that…"

Naruto frowned at me, "What do you mean you can't read it? You had to have been able to read it in order to finish the spell. What did you do then, make shit up?" I covered my face with my hand, unable to stop the deep red blush of embarrassment, and nodded. There was a short pause. "Oh shit." I silently agreed. "So… what did you say..?"

I dropped my hand slightly and looked at the shimmering red of his wide eyes. It seemed he was a bit too distracted by the gravity of the implications to insult me over it. It made it easier for me to sit down on the other side of the book and try to remember the words I'd used as I inspected the passage. "I'm sure what I said was: 'make me one with your life force and take what I have offered to seal this spell and oath from now until forever'."

Naruto sat down heavily and glared daggers at me. "If I could shove you through a window right now, I would."

"They were just words!" I said desperately. "I couldn't read it and I had to finish the spell somehow!"

"It's never 'just words' when you're reciting a spell! Words have power and you just did exactly what your ancestors had been trying to do when they first made that spell, only you did it by accident!"

I frowned incredulously, "Now you're not making any sense! All this spell is for is to keep the curse from killing us!"

"Gah!" Naruto threw his hands up and left the bed. "That's what you people are using it for _now_, but your stupid ancestors were developing this thing way before they got cursed." He said, pacing. "The original idea was immortality! That's the real reason that room underground is full of sealing tablets. Your ancestors were tying demons to them so they could leech off our life forces because they knew that unless we get exorcised or kill each other, we live forever!" He said looking at me accusingly.

A chill went through me and I had a few false starts before I finally managed to speak. "They were making themselves immortal..?" Please no. Oh gods, please let it not be true.

"No!" Naruto shouted. "They were trying to, and as soon as the corrupt Shinto priest who was helping them figured out how to do it, he cursed your clan and hauled ass outta there. Your ancestors had to use the spell as he'd left it in order to survive. All it had the power to do up 'till then was tie a demon to you for protection, that's it!" Naruto finally stopped shouting but he was breathing hard and the look of devastation on his face probably mirrored my own.

"So… you mean to say that I… that we…?" I couldn't say it, I could barely think it. It was the exact opposite of what I'd snuck down there to accomplish. Worse than a nightmare it was…

Naruto collapsed onto the floor at the foot of my dresser and held his head in his hands. "Sure, it's better than living a human life span and dying with you but now I'm a slave forever... My chakra's going to keep you alive for as long as I live instead of the other way around…" '…It was true.' I made a small horrified sound and was suddenly glad I was sitting down.

I couldn't let myself believe it, "There's still a chance you could be wrong. How do you even know any of this?" I ignored the treacherous little thought that screamed 'denial' in the back of my head and looked at Naruto hopefully.

But he was shaking his head. "I was there watching it happen, trying to find out what was going on; why so many demons in the area were disappearing. I snooped around and managed to find out a few things before I got caught." He finally raised his head and there was a lot of resentment in his face. "I can't believe I'm stuck with you forever."

I frowned and leaned away, "Back off. I'm not exactly thrilled about it either." I was still reeling from the idea that I was going to live forever. In fact, I was more than devastated. I turned back to the book. "Maybe there's something more in here… some way to reverse it…" I reached out to turn the page.

"NO!"

There was a spark of what looked like electricity and I pulled my hand back but not fast enough. "Ow!" I waved my fingers in the air and felt the tingle from where they'd been burned. "What the…"

"Idiot!" I looked up startled to see Naruto right next to me. "You've got my chakra inside you, genius! You can't touch anything that's warded anymore."

I blinked and frowned at him, "I thought you were supposed to protect me." I wasn't exactly taking a stab at him, I was genuinely curious. I had assumed I couldn't be hurt anymore.

Naruto stood up straight and crossed his arms, looking off to the side. "Not by choice. Anyway I'm not perfect. I'm not going to be able to anticipate every stupid mistake you make."

I glared, "Listen, dumbass. I don't need you babysitting me or holding my hand. If it's an order you need then here it is: shove off and leave me alone, I don't want or need you to protect me."

Naruto actually growled at me. "If it were that easy, I'd be ok with it but I _can't_ leave your side for more than a few minutes and _not_ protecting you is the one order the stupid spell won't let me obey. Besides," he said grabbing my wrist, "I'm not going to let you do this again. If you try to kill yourself what you're really doing is killing me and I don't feel like dying, asshole."

I yanked my wrist away and stood up, "Mind your own business, idiot!"

"Well seeing as how your business is my business that's exactly what I'm doing, bastard!" He yelled back.

There was a knock on the door and it felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head. Could my father have heard..?! "Young Master?" It was the voice of our butler from the other side of the door. "The lady of the house requests that you and your guest keep your voices down. She also says she will be up to see you shortly."

When I didn't respond right away, Naruto shoved my shoulder slightly and I came back to myself with a start. "Y-yes, thank you. We will."

"Very good, sir." I heard his footsteps fade down the hall and sat down heavily on the bed.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "You're really afraid of that guy aren't you?" We both knew he wasn't talking about the butler and I looked away from him, angry at myself for letting Naruto see that.

I pulled my hand back into the sleeve of my robe and started flipping pages in the spell book through the fabric. "There's gotta be something in here that can help us."

"There isn't." Naruto said shortly. It was the confidence in his voice that made me stop and I realized that he would probably know better than I did.

I looked at the now useless book and closed it, the sound of which echoed through the room making everything right down to our last conversation feel sort of… final. Then another thought occurred to me, "Naruto, why was I able to summon you when no one else could…?"

Naruto sat back down on my bed and kicked the spell book onto the floor with his sandals. "It's because you wanted to die."

I blinked incredulously, "What does that have to do with it?"

Naruto reached into his kimono and pulled out a necklace with a green stone at the end of it. "I knew enough about what was going on by the time they captured me to know that I could expect to be one of the first summoned after having been sealed inside that tablet." He said as played with the stone between his fingers. "The last thing I wanted was to be spellbound to some human in lifelong servitude." Naruto gave me a sidelong glance as if to judge my reaction but I shrugged. It's not as though I'd wanted this either and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be in his position.

"They had already used Shinto wards to capture me and seal my powers but I still had this." He said indicating the stone in his hand. "It'd been given to me by this old priestess lady I'd looked after years ago so I used its power to cast a spell on myself while your ancestors were busy sealing me away." He looked at me again and then his gaze drifted to the wrist of my left hand where the scars were more prominent. "They were using the spell for protection because they wanted to live. So I added a condition to summoning me: you had to want to die. I thought that nobody who wanted to die was gonna summon a demon protector."

I inspected my burned fingertips distractedly, suddenly self-conscious. The burn was already half-healed. "But how does that help you? You'd be stuck in that tablet forever if no one could release you."

Naruto sighed, "I didn't need anyone to release me. The spell was powerful, it had be in order to keep demons like me asleep for so long, but I was powerful too and unlike a spell my power doesn't fade over time. Even if it took hundreds of years, once the power of the spell weakened enough, I would be able to break free." He said it while resting his elbows on his bent knees and leaning forward to lay his chin on his arms. There wasn't any arrogance in his previous statement, just fact. He was that powerful and made no bones about it.

A timid knock at the door drew my attention away from Naruto for the moment, "Come in." I said, knowing who it would be. Naruto's gaze shifted to the door as it opened and my mother stepped inside. She paused a moment when she saw him, probably shocked by his appearance. Three of his nine tails were shifting behind him curiously as he looked at her. That's when I noticed he had his sandals on the bed and I kicked him. "Hey, take those off, idiot." I hissed.

He glared at me resentfully but reached down to untie the sandals and kick them off. His ears twitched in irritation while he did and he grumbled something under his breath that I didn't hear and choose to ignore. "Amazing…" I heard my mother say and I noticed that she was still looking at Naruto's tails with a bit of awe. She turned back to me and gave me a brilliant smile that had an instant calming effect on me. I rarely got to spend a moment alone with her without my father around.

She walked to the bed and hugged me the way she used to when I was younger and I'd done something she could be proud of. It caused a war of conflicting emotions inside me – I both wanted and needed this as much as I wanted to reject it. Part of me resented the fact that she'd never been able to protect me from my father's wrath but I also couldn't blame her for it or stop loving her in spite of it. "I can't believe it's true, that you really did it and by yourself!" She said the pride evident in her voice as she pulled back.

She took my face in her hands, inspecting what was left of the bruising. "Thank heavens it doesn't seem to have been as bad as I thought." I quickly pulled the robe even tighter around myself. I couldn't let her see the other bruises and ask me questions I wasn't prepared to answer yet. Thankfully, she didn't notice because her gaze had wandered back to Naruto and she looked at him a bit apprehensively at first before she smiled timidly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Sasuke's mother."

Naruto instantly went from silent curiosity, to surprised, to a grin that threatened to split his face in two. I blinked, a bit stunned at the way it drastically transformed his face. "The name's Naruto." He said reaching out a hand.

Mother glanced at his claws but politely, if not hesitatingly, took his hand and shook it. "It's a pleasure, Naruto. I'm relieved to know that it's you who will be protecting my son from now on. Please take good care of him." She said proving his smile was contagious.

I smirked, 'not that he has a choice'. Naruto glanced at me for a split second and then his attention was all on my mom again. "It's what I'm here for. No worries, I'll be around to make sure he doesn't trip and fall down the stairs or something." My mother chuckled and I curled my fist barely restraining the urge to punch his daylights out.

"Has Sasuke decided to keep you physically near or will you be his invisible protector?" She asked him. Naruto looked at me confused.

"My dad keeps Tobi invisible and insubstantial because he's constantly out in public or at work. Even though Tobi can make himself look human, father would rather not have to explain him to anyone."

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "and that's what you're going to do to me?"

I sighed quietly. I had the vindictive urge to say yes just to get back at him for earlier but… it was a difficult truth to admit to myself that I was tired of being alone all the time and I couldn't willingly inflict that on myself now that he was here. "No." I said simply. Hey, it's not like I was going to admit any of that aloud. Over my dead body.

Naruto seemed to relax at that and I realized I hadn't considered how he'd feel about it. I rubbed at my temple distractedly where the bruising around a split in the skin was almost completely healed. Living with someone else was going to take some getting used to. "Well, then. Perhaps you should ask him to make himself look… a little more human." Mother started saying again. "Since he'll be your constant companion from now on, he'll be attending lessons with you and there's no need for your tutors to suspect anything." She smiled at the demon next to me. "We'll say you're a cousin come to stay with us from abroad, alright Naruto?"

"Sure." He said smiling back at her.

She nodded to him and turned back to me, her smile slipping right off her face. "Sasuke, I convinced Fugaku to leave for his trip a little earlier so that he could cool his head a bit. I'll be joining him in a few hours but I want you to know that I'll be staying for a couple months after he leaves to help arrange a few things for this business deal in Boston. He'll be back in one week and… I wouldn't be here if I were you."

I nodded solemnly, understanding. Father was pissed and I needed to remain outside of his notice for as long as possible. "I've arranged for your things to be moved into your brother's penthouse tomorrow. Feel free to make whatever arrangements you think you'll need for the two of you while we're gone." She kissed me on the forehead and smiled sadly at me, "I love you sweetheart. Take care." She said and walked out of the room.

"Awww!"

I glared at Naruto through my embarrassed blush. "Shut the hell up."

"But that was so cute!" he said with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. I felt the beginnings of my own sinister grin and picked the spell book up off the floor through my sleeve. His red eyes widened, "You wouldn't…" I chucked the useless thing at him before he could finish and he ducked, rolling off the bed at the same time. "You jerk!"

I smirked, "Shut up and fix your stupid appearance. I can't take you into the city with you looking like that."

Naruto huffed and stood up, glancing at himself in the mirror as he did so. "There's nothing wrong with the way I look. You humans are the weird looking ones." But even as he said it he was closing his eyes and I watched as he began to change. The claws on his feet and hands retracted slightly and smoothed out, morphing into human nails. He raised those clawless hands up to the ears at the top of his head and covered them for a few minutes before finally ruffling the hair there and pulling his hands away. The fox ears had vanished. He tucked some of his blonde hair behind his new human ears on either side of his face and stuck a finger in one moving it around and yawning as if to pop them. "I can't hear shit with these Sasuke. I don't know how you humans do it." He complained, petulantly.

"Deal with it." I replied shortly, still watching with reluctant awe as one by one all his tails disappeared. Naruto then rubbed furiously at his closed eyes and opened them slowly and I felt my own eyes widen. Those were the bluest eyes I'd ever seen on another human being. 'Then again,' I thought as I walked up to him and stared into those unfocused eyes, 'he's not human, is he?'

Naruto rubbed his eyes again and when he opened them a second time he was able to focus and look at me. "How's this?" he asked.

I gave myself a mental slap before he caught me starring and pointed at his cheeks, "Missed a spot."

He looked in the mirror and concentrated on the image but nothing happened and he shook his head. "No can do. I can make myself look almost human but not completely human, something's gotta stay."

I looked at his cheeks and shrugged, "Better than a bunch of tails sticking out of your pants I guess. I don't think anyone will be rude enough to ask about them." I said gesturing to the marks that looked like whiskers.

Naruto however was still looking at himself in the mirror. "I look so… weird."

I snorted, "That is the only thing that didn't change." I said welcoming the indignation and the insults to come. I needed the distraction, but more importantly I wanted a reason to keep looking at him because far from looking 'weird', Naruto was…

"At least I don't look like a porcelain doll, jackass!" he yelled, throwing a pillow from the bed at me. I caught it and used it to hide the first real smile I'd felt come on in a long time. Naruto was breathtaking.

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That night I was sitting in the same place as the night before; on the floor, my back against the bed, looking out my window and bidding a silent farewell to the quiet of the country side before I left for Tokyo in the morning. So much had happened in the last twenty four hours that my head was still spinning. I knew I hadn't yet come to terms with the whole immortality thing. In spite of knowing the seriousness of the matter it probably hadn't really hit me yet. Well, that and the knowledge that I wasn't going to be alone anymore. I was actually surprised at how much comfort came with that realization. Sure Naruto was annoying, and loud, and irritating… but he was going to be my constant companion for the foreseeable future and rather than be put out by the thought, it somehow felt right.

"Hey Sasuke," Naruto said from the mattress above me.

"Hn?" I responded surprised. He'd been so quiet I thought he was asleep.

"I like your mom… I know she was sorta uneasy around me at first but she treated me like a normal person. The old lady priestess is the only other person who did that."

I huffed in response, a little irritated. "I guess I don't count."

There was a pause. "Heh, I guess being an asshole counts too."

I grabbed the pillow I was sitting on and smacked him in the head with it without looking. "Hey!" Smothering the smirk I felt creeping up again, I sat back down and looked out the window again while Naruto confiscated my pillow and moved away from me to keep me from taking it back.

There were still bloodstains on the window from the other night and I realized with a bit of a rush that thanks to Naruto, that sort of abuse was going to be a thing of the past. I hugged my knees to myself as the wash of relief threatened to overwhelm me again. Thanks to Naruto tomorrow I'd be leaving this place and its painful memories. I was moving back to the city penthouse, far from my father and this house with its demons both real and metaphorical. It was all thanks to Naruto. "I promise I'll treat you like a human being, Naruto." I said softly.

"Huh? What did you say?" Naruto asked above me and I could just see him in my mind's eye sticking a finger in his ears again and hear him complaining in a low voice under his breath about their uselessness.

I shook my head and allowed myself to smile only because I knew he couldn't see it. "Never mind."

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AN: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! It's been very encouraging and I appreciate everything you guys have to say. I wanted to let you guys know that the next chapter might take me a bit longer to post because I have some school related stuff to take care of but I'm already working on it – and I can promise you it'll be much longer than this one.

In the next chapter, Naruto and Sasuke will have to deal with a surprise attack from an unexpected source as well as the feelings they begin to develop for each other. It's shaping up to be my favorite chapter yet. ^_^

~ Lotus-chan


	4. Happiness, For Sale

Heads up: All Warnings and Triggers remain.

Happiness, by Accident  
By: Lotus-chan  
Ch03: Happiness, For Sale

I walked back into my room, still towel drying my hair, to see that Naruto was still asleep on the recliner next to my bed. I stood there for a moment, watching him. We'd talked almost all night and I couldn't help remembering one of the last things he'd said to me before falling asleep.

"_Naruto?" I asked from my place on the bed. I'd forced him onto the recliner because although my room was spacious the bed wasn't big enough to fit two comfortably… I don't think I could've handled the awkwardness of sharing it with another guy even if it had been. _

_Naruto shifted in the recliner, the blanket I'd given him wrapped tightly around him like a cocoon. "Mm?" he mumbled groggily. _

_I hesitated a moment, not really knowing if I wanted an answer to my question after all. "Naruto, this morning… did you hear everything I said? When I was reciting the spell?" I'd initially thought he hadn't because he couldn't remember the words I'd used to summon him but I had this feeling… _

_He was silent a moment, "not everything. Just the parts where you were giving me orders." _

'_That makes sense.' I thought. 'He had to know I'd asked for his name, and that I'd asked him to… drink my blood.' The thought made me squirm uneasily, especially when I remembered how having his lips on mine had made me feel. I banished the thought quickly, I couldn't deal with the implications of that at the moment. Right now, there was something more important that I wanted to know. "Then… didn't you hear me when I asked you to kill me?" I asked and cursed the hesitation in my voice. _

_A rustle of fabric as he shifted again preceded his reluctant answer, "…yeah, I heard you." _

"_Why didn't you then?" I said plowing forward. _

_There was a long silence next to my bed; so long I thought he wasn't going to answer, and then… "Because that's not what you needed." _

I rubbed at the scars on my left wrist absentmindedly as I remembered what he'd said. I'd reflected on that a long time last night and had to reluctantly admit to myself that he was right. Even with the spell incomplete, which was the answer I'd expected him to give me, Naruto had already established enough of a connection with me to know that the reason I'd been able to summon him in the first place was because dying was what I'd wanted… but it wasn't what I'd needed. What I'd needed was an out; an escape. I'd needed one so badly and been so desperate for it that I'd made a rash decision that almost got me killed. What I _needed_ was to get away from my problems and especially from my father, who made no secret how much he hated and resented me. Who I knew had every intention of forcing me into living my life in a way that suited his needs and who had expectations of me I knew I could not fulfill.

After all, how could I possibly tell my father, who measured what little worth I had based on my fertility and future offspring that the thought of being with a woman in that way repulsed me. He would disown me or worse, fly into another uncontrollable rage and kill me himself. I felt my hands shake as I threw the towel on my bed and slipped on my underwear and a pair of jeans. No, I didn't want to die but… I was _tired_ of living like this.

There was a light snore from a few feet away and I looked up. Naruto was still sleeping, the blanket I'd given him was tangled around his legs and I felt like smiling at the sight of it. The sudden reminder of his presence had such a calming effect on my rising anxiety that it surprised me. I didn't know if it was my own cursed luck or just an accident but I was glad for the outcome of my rash decision yesterday. I didn't think I was ready to adjust to the idea of immortality yet, if it was even true – I was probably still in some denial over it, but I reluctantly admitted to myself that having Naruto here just might be worth it.

I walked over to the recliner and kicked it. "Nuh..? Wha..?" Naruto said, starting awake and looking up at me.

I smirked, "Get up, moron. Its morning and you haven't had a bath in several hundred years."

He glared at me, "What way is that to wake someone up in the morning?!"

"Mine," I said grabbing his arm and hauling him to his feet.

"Leggo, asshole. I was trying to sleep!" Naruto said, yanking his arm away and making to get back on the recliner.

I grabbed his arm again and started pulling him to the door. "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you." I instantly felt him stop resisting and glanced back. Naruto was glaring at me and I realized that my power over him had forced him to obey. I stopped, "Look," I said, annoyed by the feeling of guilt that had crept up on me. "We're moving into the city today and there's a lot we have to do. I want us out of here as soon as possible." I finished, suppressing a chill as I remembered the blood on the carpet near the window. I needed out of this old mansion as soon as possible.

Naruto seemed to mellow out a bit, glancing back to the same window and a thought occurred to me. "Can you hear my thoughts?" I blurted out in sudden realization.

He looked at me, "I kinda sense your emotions a bit, not your thoughts. I told you last night that you messed up with the spell and there's a lot of static in my head." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head as if in illustration. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

At any rate, I grabbed his arm again and he let me pull him out to the hallway and into the bathroom. That's when I stopped and looked at him curiously, "You do know how to use the bathroom, right?" I asked.

Still rubbing the back of his head, he nodded. "Yeah, sure. I'm still absorbing a lot of information from your memories but yeah." He said and began untying the belt of his hakama.

I quickly shut the door and high-tailed it outta there. I did _not_ need to see Naruto undressing right now. I walked back into my room and ignored the blush on my cheeks as I stood in front of the mirror to brush my hair. That's when I first saw the mark. I leaned closer to get a better look and saw there was a dark ring encircling the curse mark like a tattoo. It was where I'd drawn the circle of blood that Naruto had… licked…

"Argh!" I leaned back and started brushing my hair again. I did not need to be thinking about that right now! "Stupid, idiotic…" I didn't even know who I was talking about anymore and finally just banished the thought entirely and went looking for the rest of my clothes. I pulled a white tee over my head and slipped a blue long sleeve flannel on over it, leaving it unbuttoned. After that I put on my watch and a sweatband with the logo of my favorite band on my other wrist to hide the scars. I was putting on my socks when Naruto came walking back into the room dripping wet with nothing but a towel around his waist and I just stopped.

Naruto blinked and made this weird face at me. "What?"

I gave myself a mental slap. "Um… you need some clothes." I said distractedly and rushed to my dresser. I pulled out a pair of jeans and threw them at him. "By the way, that was kind of a fast shower." I said, taking what even I knew was a weak stab at him in the hopes of deflecting from my obvious staring a moment ago.

"Tch, it's not like you gave me much choice. You flew outta the bathroom like a bat outta hell and I can only be away from you for a few minutes, genius." He said, sliding the jeans on under the towel. I looked away _again_ and pulled a black t-shirt out from my bottom drawer. It had the Uchiha crest on the sleeves but it would do until I could get him his own clothes.

"Here." I said standing up and handing him the shirt. He tossed the towel next to mine on the bed and pulled the shirt on over his head. The borrowed jeans appeared to fit him fine but the shirt looked a little tight on him. He was so physically fit underneath it though that I didn't think anybody would be able to tell that it wasn't supposed to fit like that. Looking away _again_, goddamnit, I tossed him a pair of sandals. "Put them on downstairs." I said, grabbing my cell phone off the dresser. I lead him out to the stairs and down to the first floor where the butler was waiting for us.

"Good morning young master, would you and your guest care for breakfast before you depart?" he asked, bowing in greeting as soon as we came off the stairs.

"Breakfast?" I heard Naruto say hopefully.

"No thank you, I want to leave immediately."

He nodded, "I shall have the car brought around, sir. Your honorable mother left instructions for all your belongings to be moved to the penthouse this morning, rest assured they will be there when you arrive." I nodded to him and he walked off to get the chauffer.

Naruto made a noise of disappointment behind me, "It wouldn't kill you to have breakfast, Sasuke."

I sighed ignoring him and decided to wait for the car outside. My desire to get away from this house hadn't changed, rather, it had intensified and I could no longer stand to so much as wait in the sitting room much less have breakfast. I walked out the door and Naruto grumbled but followed behind me. Outside, I gave it one last look. It was an old Meiji era western style mansion that was more museum than home. I hated it. Most of my worst memories had happened while staying in this house because the servants were discrete and my father didn't feel like he needed to keep up appearances while away from his social circle. I'd run away from this prison more times than I could remember and nearly succeeded in ending my life twice in that house. Hopefully I would not have a reason to come back soon, if ever.

The car pulled around in front of us and I didn't bother waiting for the chauffer to get out to greet me. I opened the door of the backseat and got inside. "Just drive." I said curtly after Naruto had gotten in and shut the door. The driver acknowledged my order with a 'yes, sir' and finally drove us away from the house. The farther from the house we got, the more relaxed I got and I was finally able to enjoy Naruto's reaction to seeing the outside world for the first time in hundreds of years. As soon as we got into Tokyo proper and were surrounded by all the lights, people, and skyscrapers Naruto glued himself to the window, staring out of it in awe.

I had to suppress the urge to laugh at his childlike curiosity. "See something you like?" I teased.

Naruto was smiling, "It's just like you remember it but I didn't want to believe it."

We entered the shopping district of Shibuya and I told the chauffer to pull over. "Shall I wait for you, sir?" the chauffer asked as we got out.

"No, I'll call if we need you again." I said closing the door. He nodded back to me and drove off as I pulled away from the street and rubbed my arms. It was still fall but the chill air was coming early. Turning around, I found Naruto a few feet away not appearing to be the least bit bothered by the cool wind. Instead, he was staring in rapt fascination at the giant video screens and neon lights that lit up the signs above several shops across the street.

There was a wide grin on his face. "It's so awesome finally seeing it for myself like this." He said, his gaze shifting to the cars and the people.

I smirked, "Well, you can people watch on our way to the department store." I said as I started leading him through the crowd. "The first thing we need to do is get you some clothes." There was a good store somewhere nearby that sold brands I liked.

The crowd began to thin out on the side walk as a large group of people left to cross the street. I was looking around distractedly, trying to find the right place when I heard a scraping noise from above and someone yelling. "Watch out!" I looked up to see a large paint can falling fast from several stories above me. I only had time for my eyes to widen in horror when Naruto suddenly grabbed me, pulled me sharply into his arms and turned me away from the sidewalk. Not even a second later the unopened paint can hit the pavement with a heavy crash, spilling red paint all over the sidewalk, right where I'd been standing.

"Sorry!" I heard somebody yell from a suspended platform above us. "Are you ok?!"

"Sorry?!" Naruto yelled back. "Come down here and I'll show you how sorry you are!"

I stared at the red paint covering the sidewalk for one shocked moment before I finally snapped out of it and covered Naruto's mouth with my hand. "You're making a scene." I hissed, glancing at all the people who were staring, horrified by the almost-accident. I grabbed his arm and pulled him away before we attracted any more unwanted attention.

"Stupid, sonofa… that thing could've killed you!" he said, indignant. I sighed, remembering the curse.

"Things like that are going to happen from now on, that's why you're here." I said, finally spotting the store and pulling him inside. Once we were inside I steered us toward a display of blue jeans. "Could that really have killed me?" I asked quietly, once I thought we had some privacy.

Naruto sneered in the direction of the doors, still apparently thinking of that guy who'd nearly dropped the paint can on my head. "Well no, but it would've hurt like a mother, and been really hard to explain to a paramedic hours later when you got back up without so much as a concussion for your trouble." He looked back at me, "Nothing short of another really powerful demon, an exorcism or a heavily warded place or object can kill you now, mostly because you tied your life force to mine and those are the only things that can kill me."

I nodded, turning to the display. So no more temple visits then. That was fine, I'd never been especially religious. I pulled out a couple pairs of jeans, one dark blue, the other stone washed with the knees torn, "What do you…" I started but when I turned to show them, Naruto wasn't there. "Naruto?" I looked around and spotted him in another section holding up an orange hoodie with red pockets. I nearly facepalmed thinking of the outfit he'd been wearing when I'd summoned him. "Of course." I said to myself walking over to him.

"Yeah? Yeah?" He said smiling and pulled it on over his head right there. I tossed the jeans at him and he caught them with that grin still on his face.

"Yeah, it suits you." I admitted. "C'mon, we need to get you more than just a hoodie." He beamed at me and I felt my heart skip a beat. I turned around quickly and started walking through the displays, gathering more clothes I thought might look good on him. That's when I started to feel this prickling sensation at the back of my neck… like someone was watching me. I turned around slightly, looking towards the section for sports wear. There were two guys there, one in a green shirt with a bowl cut admiring an olive green jacket and a redhead who looked like he belonged in a rock band. It was that guy who caught my attention. He was wearing all black, with more piercings in his ears than I could count, including a labret, overdone eye makeup, and hauling a large guitar case on his back. He was also openly staring at me.

I looked away uneasily. What a creepy guy. "Naruto." I said finding him at another rack with an armload of shirts. He looked up, a question on his face. "Lets go try these on." I grabbed his hand quickly without waiting for his answer and headed for the fitting rooms. Glancing back I noticed that the redhead was still staring at me, this time though his stare had gone from neutral to angry. I pulled Naruto into a room and closed the door behind us, breathing a sigh of relief.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at me while hanging his clothes on a hook. "Something wrong, Sasuke?"

"No." I didn't want Naruto to know how easily that guy had unsettled me. There was just something about him that seemed… off.

A black shirt hit me in the face and I turned to yell at Naruto when what I saw paralyzed me. Naruto grinned at me shirtless. "Don't space out so much Sasuke or something else might fall on your head." He unbuttoned his jeans and slipped them off.

I hadn't given him any underwear this morning.

It was suddenly too hot in that dressing room. "I think I'm gonna wait outside." I said looking away and practically making a dive for the door knob.

Just as I got the door open a crack, a hand reached from behind me and slammed it closed. "Geez Sasuke, I'm naked here. Can't you wait 'till I put some pants on at least?"

His voice was right next to my ear. I could _feel_ his body heat against my back. I knew my face was beat red because I could still see him in my mind, standing naked behind me, and suddenly I couldn't breathe. "Yeah," I finally managed to squeeze out. "I _know_ that you're naked."

There was a pause, "Oh."

Mortified, I pulled open the door and slipped out fast. "I'll be right outside." I said and quickly shut the door. He didn't answer, which was fine because I needed a moment to pull myself back together. What the hell was wrong with me? I could still feel my heart thumping a mile a minute in my chest. I walked a few steps away and leaned against another fitting room door. 'There's no way…' I thought, trying to chase away the image of Naruto naked in my head and failing miserably. All I could think of was how close he'd been to me just now, the feeling of his arms around me when he'd pulled me out of the way on the sidewalk outside, his smile when I'd said I'd liked that stupid hoodie…

'Oh my god… I've barely known him a day!' I thought to myself, beyond mortified. 'But I think… am I attracted to him…?' And then all I could think of was what he'd told me earlier._ I kinda sense your emotions a bit, not your thoughts._ I slid down the door to the floor and put my face in my hands. 'He should've let the paint can hit me…' I thought miserably. 'It would've only delayed the inevitable.' A treacherous voice in the back of my head responded. 'This probably started developing when he kissed me…' My thoughts kind of crashed against a brick wall as I remembered it and I raised my fingertips to my lips. They tingled at the memory. It had been my first kiss.

The door opened and Naruto stepped out of the dressing room with his armload of clothes. I stood up quickly and he smiled at me. It looked kind of forced. "They fit." He said looking at me then away while rubbing the back of his head sheepishly as if he'd done something wrong.

"Hn." I responded intelligently and walked away knowing he would follow me. The next thing I tossed onto the pile in his arms was a handful of boxers.

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Hours later I was still fighting back the embarrassment from the Fitting Room Incident which we were both pretending had never happened. The high rise that contained the department store where we'd bought Naruto's clothes was part of a series of stores that occupied the first seven levels of the building/shopping mall. We were on the sixth floor in the food court. I was picking at a salad, my appetite had long since gone the way of the dinosaurs, but Naruto had discovered his love for ramen and was on his third bowl. I sighed and got up, "going to the restroom." I muttered, needing an excuse to get away from him for a few minutes.

He mumbled an affirmative, or it could've been a moan of ramen-induced ecstasy, at the rate he was going I couldn't tell anymore. I shook my head and made my way through the surprisingly thin crowd to the restrooms. When I walked through the doors I immediately sensed something was wrong. I couldn't place it right away; all the stalls were empty and I was alone in the bathroom. That's when I noticed all the sand on the floor. "What…?"

I didn't have time to say anything else. The sand leapt up like something alive and grabbed me, wrapping around my legs and arms, pinning them to my sides. I tried to yell for help but the sand crawled up my body lightning fast and covered my nose and mouth. I felt it harden around me and it lifted me up off the ground. Movement to my left caught my attention and I watched the redhead from before emerge from the shadows behind a door. "I figured the Uchiha's had captured him," he began in a dark voice, "I just didn't know what was taking them so long to summon him back."

'What the fuck?!' I thought frantically. I tried to struggle but I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. The redhead almost looked amused by my efforts but his face remained mostly impassive. "I'm not going to let you kill him." He said raising an open hand in my direction. "I'll kill _you_ first." He began closing his hand into a fist and I felt the sand tighten around me. I made a strangled noise deep in my throat and in that moment of desperation, for some crazy reason I would never be able to explain, I thought of Naruto.

"Sasuke!" Naruto burst through the doors and the sight before him stopped him in his tracks, "Gaara?!"

The redhead, Gaara, turned and acknowledged him, "You'll be free soon." He squeezed his hand tighter and I heard a snap as the bone in my arm cracked. I wanted to scream but I didn't have the breath for it, couldn't even open my mouth. Tears fell from my eyes and my struggles increased but it was more in response to my lack of oxygen than to the intense pain coming from the brake in my arm.

"Let him go right _now_!" I heard Naruto say in a dark voice I'd never heard him use before. His eyes were red again, the claws had grown back and he was baring his fangs menacingly. Gaara reached up with his other hand and the rest of the sand leapt up around Naruto, restraining him.

"I know that you've been ordered to protect him. Don't worry, once he's dead you'll be free to make your own choices again." Naruto made a deep animalistic growl and was suddenly surrounded by a red aura of chakra. Black spots began to dance in my vision and I no longer had the strength to struggle. Naruto ripped out of the sand restraints just as a green whirlwind came from out of nowhere and attacked Gaara from behind. I heard something crack inside my chest and finally passed out.

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"… deep breaths. That's it, keep it up Sasuke. Come back to me." I woke suddenly to the sound of that soothing voice, letting it guide me into taking those shallow yet almost gasping breaths I so desperately needed. Every breath I took was painful as my lungs expanded against my fractured ribs and a small whine of pain escaped me. I felt Naruto rest his forehead against mine and realized he was holding me against his chest. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and there was heartfelt regret and pain in his voice. "I'm sorry, I should've been here sooner."

I still felt like I was struggling to breathe so I just lay there limply and let him hold me, listening to his heart beating in his chest and centering myself on that sound. There was some noise from the other side of the room that sounded like a heated argument but I ignored it for now, taking a guilty pleasure in the feel of Naruto's arms around me. "I'm sorry," he said again and I felt a clawed hand holding my face gently. I finally opened my eyes and the first thing I saw were his blood red eyes filled with fear and guilt staring back at me.

I was finally starting to calm down and I raised the hand of my good arm to cover the hand he'd placed on my cheek. "...fine. I'm ok." I said reassuringly even though I knew I wasn't. It seemed to be what he needed to hear though. He closed his eyes again and I felt the claws on that hand retract as Naruto himself took a few calming breaths and glared across the room.

"… and you promised me! You promised you wouldn't fly off the handle like that ever again! That you weren't going to kill anymore!" The stranger's voice was furious and I finally turned my head to look across the room and saw something I did not expect. The guy with the bowl cut I'd seen earlier was yelling at the sand demon, or whatever he was, and was absolutely livid. Gaara on the other hand, was leaning against the tiled wall of the bathroom glaring all the sand in the room back into his velvet lined guitar case.

"You jackass!" Naruto yelled joining in, "Did you even know what you were doing?"

Gaara turned his glare on Naruto. "The Uchiha's have been enslaving and killing our kind for centuries. I've been waiting a long time for them to free you from that tablet so that I could finally help you." He said with an even tone of voice despite the two people yelling at him.

Naruto seemed a little taken aback by that answer at first but his face soon dissolved into another frown, albeit not as harsh as it had been. "Enslaving yes, but we die because we're bound to them and their human life spans not because they murder us intentionally. Sasuke read the spell differently when we were bound together and now he shares my life span instead the other way around. So I'm in no danger of dying unless of course, another well meaning demon does something stupid! If you'd killed Sasuke, no matter how I was bound to him, you would've killed me too!"

Gaara actually looked stricken by the idea but eventually glared back and said calmly, "You're still a slave. Besides Lee, you're the only other person in my life who's ever mattered. I had to do _something_."

Naruto was still obviously angry with him but seemed to be calming down. "You could've asked me, did you think of that?"

The guy in green sighed heavily and walked over to us. He bent down and spoke to me, "I'm really sorry about what Gaara did. How're you feeling?"

'Like I've been run over by a truck.' "Better." I said, which was not quite a lie.

"My name's Rock Lee," he said, holding out his hand. That's when I realized I was still holding onto Naruto. I pulled my hand away from that of my demon guardian and shook hands with the friend of my would-be-killer. I was having a bit of a surreal day.

"Uchiha Sasuke, nice to meet you." I said automatically, polite custom sort of taking over in this awkward situation.

Lee smiled at me, "Do you think you can get up Sasuke-kun? Or do you need more time? Naruto-kun told us that you should heal almost as fast as he does."

"I don't know," I answered honestly and made to get up. The excruciating pain in my chest and left arm stopped me in my tracks. I gasped and tensed in Naruto's arms, who watched me alarmed and immediately moved to support my weight again. I'd have been embarrassed if I hadn't actually needed his help.

Just then I heard footsteps and a pair of black boots came into my line of sight. Gaara bent down next to Lee and scrutinized Naruto's worried expression for a moment before seeming to come to a conclusion, "I see now that you're not a slave at all. That your relationship with the Uchiha is much like my own with Lee." I saw Naruto blush for the first time since I'd met him and realized exactly what Gaara was getting at. If I was mortified before, it was nothing to how I felt now. "Bearing that in mind, I've made a grave error in judgement." He turned his head to look at me, "And I hope you can accept my apologies."

I covered my face with the hand of my good arm. "Yes, fine, whatever. I just want to go home and chug a bottle of painkillers."

"Can you get our stuff Gaara?" I heard Naruto ask in a much friendlier tone of voice. There was apparently a silent exchange and then the black boots got up and walked away.

"I really am sorry about all this. I hope we can meet again under better circumstances." I pulled my hand away from my face to give Lee a sarcastic glare but the genuine contrition on his face stopped me.

"Yeah, sure." I said, relenting. It's not like I met people everyday who knew about and thought it was perfectly normal that demons existed. I didn't think I'd sounded too enthusiastic but Lee smiled at me as if I'd given him an open invitation. Good lord, "We need to get out of here." This was a public restroom after all. I was surprised no one had walked in on us already.

I heard Gaara re-entering the restroom and looked up to see that he'd brought all our shopping bags with him. That's when I felt Naruto hook an arm under my knees and he stood up in one fluid motion, carrying me in his arms. "What the…!" I gasped when my ribs protested the sudden movement. "Put me down right now! I am not going out in public with you holding me like this!" I said in an embarrassed panic. I held on to his shirt with my good arm while Gaara slipped all the bags onto the hand that was holding up my legs.

"We're not, don't worry." Naruto said.

I instantly didn't believe him. "Put me down, damnit!"

He looked me right in the eyes, and I watched as the red in his irises surrendered to the blue once more. "Do you think I'm going to drop you?" That stopped me. No, I didn't… but that's not what this was about! "Listen, Sasuke. I can't take us to the apartment directly because I don't know where it is. I don't have memories of it yet, but there may be enough of my chakra in you that you and I might be able to do it together. All you need to do is see it in your mind and concentrate on being there. I'll do the rest." I blinked at his strange request and then suddenly remembered what he'd done that first night after we'd come upstairs to my room. Naruto had disappeared for several seconds and then reappeared with the spell book in hand.

Naruto smiled when he saw the realization dawn on me. "Ok..." I said reluctantly, still somewhat irritated that he hadn't put me down. Especially since I knew, what with the sharp pains in my chest, that I'd fall flat on my face if he did. Goddamn it all… I closed my eyes, concentrating on the image of the penthouse living room.

"I'll see you guys around." I heard him say to the other two people in the room. There was a sudden rush of air warmed by pure chakra. I felt it crackle and surround us, sweeping my hair into my face. My stomach bottomed out abruptly and all the lights went out.

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The lights were still out when I opened my eyes but we were in familiar surroundings. The living room of Itachi's penthouse apartment was dark and quiet. The curtains had been pulled on the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up one whole wall of the apartment and I could see rain clouds crowding the sky outside. Thunder rumbled threateningly over us, the clouds preventing the afternoon sunlight from shinning through to illuminate the room. Naruto shifted his hand under me and I heard the shopping bags fall to the floor.

"Where's your room?" he asked quietly and I pointed to the open door near the wall of windows. Naruto carried me into the room and I let him without a fuss. I was feeling a little uneasy now that Naruto and I were here alone in the dark. I wasn't sure what to do next. Naruto however, didn't seem to share my uncertainty. He carried me over to the large bed and set me onto it gently. I sat stiffly, gritting my teeth against the pain until I was finally settled and stopped moving.

Then he sat down next to me, reached for my shirt and tried to slip it off. I quickly grabbed his wrist with my good hand. "What're you doing?"

"Taking your shirt off. I want to see how much damage Gaara did." He insisted and slipped the flannel off my shoulders. I didn't know why I was letting him but told myself it was because I was curious to see it too. Getting the t-shirt off was a bit more difficult because raising my arms over my head was too painful. Eventually Naruto pulled the back of the shirt over my head and slid it down my arms without too much trouble. He tossed both shirts onto the floor and inspected my chest and left arm in the poor diffuse sunlight that made it through the rainclouds outside.

I looked down at myself and sighed in resignation. Yet again I was a rainbow of painful bruises. I was so used to seeing myself like this that it just didn't affect me anymore. Naruto however, looked devastated. "I'm sorry." He said again and I frowned.

"No, don't even think it. This was not your fault." He just shook his head at me and laid a hand on my chest. I flinched and pulled back a bit, both in pain and surprise. "What're you…"

"If I push more of my chakra into you, you'll heal faster." He said and put his hand on my chest again. Almost instantly his hand grew warmer and I could feel that warmth entering my chest and moving inside me. Rather than feel alarmed by the alien sensation, I leaned in to the touch slightly. It was soothing, like a balm on my aches and the pain slowly began to recede. I closed my eyes and let his chakra warm me from the inside out, wishing this illusion of intimacy could last.

I opened my eyes again when I felt Naruto's other hand touching my face. He was biting his lip, looking at me with a mixture of emotions including guilt, curiosity, apprehension, and a strange vulnerability that I had never expected to see from a being as powerful as him. Naruto caressed my cheek with the palm of his hand and slowly trailed his fingers down to my chin. The feather light touch of his fingertips to my lips made me part them subconsciously and I felt my heart race. Lifting my chin slightly with those fingers Naruto leaned forward.

I placed a hand on his chest to stop him, "I don't want your pity." I said more frustrated with myself and my attraction to him than angry with him. I knew Naruto must have figured out what feelings I was developing for him the moment I had but I'd be damned if I let him do anything because he felt guilty or sorry for me. The prospect was more humiliating than I could bear.

I watched the transformation of Naruto's face as he went from surprised, to confused, to angry. "The only thing that could make me do something I don't want to do is an order from you… and I don't remember you giving me any orders." He said, locking his gaze onto my eyes. A moment passed as he absorbed the surprise I knew was evident in my face and his expression gentled. "But I will accept your permission."

I nodded silently before reason caught up with me but by then it was mercifully too late. Naruto leaned down the rest of the way, capturing my lips with his… and it was like I'd been waiting my whole life for that moment. When his lips, soft and firm began moving against mine, I felt it _everywhere_. His hand moved back to my cheek to hold me as he touched his tongue to my lips, asking. I parted them instinctively and shivered when I felt his tongue enter my mouth and touch my own.

I tilted my head slightly to the side and straightened my back despite the pain to push forward into his touch. He took the hint and reached past my face, lacing his fingers through the short hair at the back of my head and pulled me forward. I made a small sound of appreciation, welcoming the new aggression.

The warm hand on my chest reached up to touch the base of my throat, then slid down slowly, dragging over my right nipple. I felt Naruto's fingers teasing it and if I wasn't already sure my face was bright red then I would've flushed with embarrassment as another desperate sound escaped me. Using the same hand I had initially placed on his chest to push him away, I fisted his shirt and pulled him closer instead.

He pulled back slightly and I opened my eyes, not knowing when I'd closed them. "How do you feel?" Naruto whispered against my lips. His eyes were half-lidded with desire and his fingers at the nape of my neck were stroking the locks of hair in an absentminded caress that was driving me to distraction. I almost reached up to kiss him again, nearly forgetting that he'd asked me a question.

"Feel…?" I asked, coming back to myself a bit. There was no way to describe how his touch had made me feel. The desire on his face slowly gave way to concern when I couldn't give him a coherent answer and I realized he was asking about my injuries. "Oh, uh…" I felt the warmth return to my cheeks and let go of him to place a hand on my chest. It still hurt but the pain had gone from excruciating to just this side of tolerable. The bruises already looked old. "It feels better."

"Oh, good." I heard Naruto say with a great deal of relief. When I looked at his face again, my breath caught. No one… no one had ever looked at me the way he was looking at me now. My heart skipped a beat and I was too caught up in that gaze to react when he placed a hand on my shoulder and pushed with gentle pressure until I was laying back on the bed completely. Naruto climbed over me, keeping his warm hand on my chest, the other on the bed beside me, and leaned down.

When I felt his lips on me again, I didn't hesitate. My lips parted instantly and I thrust my tongue into his mouth as he'd done to me only a moment ago. I heard him growl appreciatively and hooked my good arm around his neck needing him closer. I lost myself in that second kiss. Lost track of time, of where I was, or why this was happening; lost track of everything except him. For as long as I'd lived I never imagined that anything or anyone could mean so much to me when my own life held so little value… but here he was.

Naruto pulled back and leaned down again to place a kiss on my neck near the curse mark. He lifted his head and looked down at me a moment before giving me a brilliant smile. "Stay here and rest a bit. I'll keep pushing chakra into you until you're completely healed, then you can show me around our new place." My mind came to a sudden halt. 'Our new place', I thought not without some wonder. I liked the sound of that. Naruto reached out with the hand not on my chest and traced the smile on my lips with a finger. "You look good like that Sasuke." I blinked. I hadn't even realized I'd been doing it.

Naruto did a poor job of stifling a laugh and laid down beside me, switching hands so he could keep one over my heart where he was still pumping warm chakra into me. "Moron," I said under my breath, not looking at him. I ignored the second bout of poorly concealed laughter from the boy beside me and let myself reflect on what was happening for the first time. I hadn't known Naruto more than a day and a half but it felt like much longer. I was more than just comfortable feeling him here beside me… I felt whole. In the short time since we'd first met he'd awoken a part of me I'd thought long dead and there was no measuring the value of that. I turned my head to see he'd curled up beside me and closed his eyes, not sleeping I knew, but resting. No… there was no measuring the value of what I suddenly had; even if I didn't quite understand what it was yet. I knew at the very least it was something to live for.

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AN: Hmm… I might have to move this fic into the 'M' category sometime in the future. My boyfriend (who's my on-and-off beta) keeps demanding smut from me. Lolz, gotta love him…

Anyways, there are plans to further explain the speed at which this relationship is moving in the next chapter as well as Lee and Gaara's presence. **The next chapter will contain some nasty surprises in store for Naruto and Sasuke as well. Sasuke is soon to learn he's not quite as 'immortal' as he thought.**

I apologize profusely but it's getting harder and harder to find time to write with my busy schedule. I've already started on the next chapter but I don't think it'll be ready for 1-2 weeks.

Also, please keep reviewing. I hate asking but I enjoy hearing what you all think and am completely open to constructive C&C as well as comments on the plot. Believe me when I tell you that I take everything you guys say seriously and reply to everyone who has something to say or a question to ask.

Minor Footnotes/Additional Comments/Less Important Stuff:

… Damn, I'm wordy.

1) I regret that I couldn't have had them spend more time in Shibuya because it's such a cool place. I'll probably try to take them back there in the future if plot allows.

2) I also meant to describe the department store as Shibuya 109-2 (or 109-mens) but the flow did not allow it u.u so just pretend like I did, plzkthnx.

I'll try to keep the rant to a minimum next time but thanks for reading and I'll see you guys next update! ^_^


	5. Happiness, Interrupted

AN: I'm sorry that this update has been so long in coming. I can no longer be sure how often I will update since I have a lot of real life pressures taking away time from my writing but I've already begun the next chapter and I will try to avoid such a long wait for it. There's more drama/action in this chapter, their relationship progresses a bit more and so does Sasuke's character. I hope he's not unforgivably OOC but I think I may've mentioned that considering the circumstances of the fic, it's kind of inevitable. Now moved to the M category for Violence in this chapter and possible future smuttiness. ^^ Enjoy.

Heads Up: Warnings and Triggers remain.

Happiness, by Accident  
By: Lotus-chan  
Ch04: Happiness, Interrupted

"KIYAA!" I ducked under a round house kick and took a step back as Lee followed it up with another spinning kick to the face. Raising my arms, I used my forearms to block a series of rapid fire punches before I side stepped, anticipating the low kick a split second before Lee moved. He initiated another high kick with his other leg and I bent backwards, feeling the wind brush against my face at the speed of Lee's movements. I was not however fast enough to prevent Lee's next move. Coming out of the kick, he crouched low and swept a leg under me as I was regaining my balance. I fell on my back but quickly rolled out of the way as Lee got back up and aimed a finishing blow at my torso.

Now a few feet away, I kicked out with my legs and landed on my feet, ready for his next attack. He was on me fast, punching out with his right hand. I moved out of the way and grabbed his arm, intending to flip him over but he twisted himself around me until he was behind me, holding me trapped against his chest. Before he could claim another killing blow, I hooked a foot behind his ankle and pushed back. Lee took me down with him as he fell and as soon as we hit the floor I escaped his grasp by rolling to the side and twisting my hips to end up on my feet all in one fluid motion. Lee was already on his feet by the time I looked up. So fast! He was standing, one hand behind him and one in front in a ready stance and beckoned me forward with a look of anticipation.

I grinned and showed him just how fast I could be. Running forward I pressed punch after punch, which he deflected, his face melting into strict concentration. He stepped back and aimed a kick at my midsection which I blocked with a kick of my own. Pulling back, I didn't give him a chance to press another attack. I kicked high, aiming for his face but Lee ducked under it. I used my momentum to pivot my hips and send another kick at him just as he was straightening up. Lee was quick to catch on and caught my leg in mid air, pulling me forward. I slipped, losing my balance and my back hit the floor. "HA!" I looked up and Lee had his fist to my neck. It was over.

We were both breathing hard from the exertion of our mock battle and Lee smiled brightly at me as soon as I nodded, acknowledging his win. "Wow, you're a genius!" he said, the fist at my neck now extended in a friendly hand to help me up. "We've only been training a few days! I've never seen any of our other students pick up the lessons this fast. Do you have any previous training?"

I smirked and took the offered hand. "Some; I haven't had any formal training in years though. My parents wanted me to focus on academics after my brother's death so that I could take his place as heir." I'd discovered over the past five days that Lee was very easy to talk to and I tended to confide things to him. He knew about my family, the curse, and the situation with the spell and the demons that were bound to us. Lee in turn was a spirited, if odd, friend and a skilled martial artist.

The day after we met, Lee and Gaara paid us a visit; Gaara confessing to having found us due to his ability to track the souls of people he's met... creepy. They invited us to visit their home which turned out to be a martial arts dojo. Lee was a genius in his own right; at seventeen he was the assistant master of the taijutsu style taught here and offered to teach me that same day. I'd been only too happy to take him up on his offer, but not just because I was eager to resume a pastime I enjoyed. After finally escaping the grips of the Uchiha mansion, along with its confinement and dark memories, I was anxious to direct my new found energy and freedom into something positive; something that could help restore my emotional equilibrium and help me focus.

It also allowed Naruto and Gaara, who were apparently old friends, to do some catching up. Lee walked over to the bench and tossed me my bottle of water. "I'm sorry to hear about your brother." He said sincerely. That was another quality I liked about Lee, he was honest and sincere to a fault.

"It's ok, it happened a long time ago." I said and was surprised to realize I was right. I did feel ok talking about him. I screwed off the cap of my bottle and took a swig wondering when that had changed when a bark of familiar laughter drew my thoughts back to the present. The sliding doors of the dojo were open and I could see both demons sitting outside on the walkway, talking. The dojo was old; built before the revolution and was currently undergoing restoration which was why we had the place to ourselves. There was a central rock garden right outside, surrounded by the elevated walkway where Naruto and Gaara were seated.

My eyes caught movement beyond the walkway and I watched slightly perplexed as the rocks seemed to rearrange themselves into wave-like patterns around the small serenity boulders in the center of the garden. Lee turned his head to see what I was looking at and smiled. "It's supposed to be a _rock_ garden, but since Gaara's domain is sand he's ground the small rocks into a fine powder in order to manipulate them."

I watched as Gaara seemed to move what I now knew was sand into elaborate wave shapes with a mere twitch of his fingers and shook my head. "Where did you meet this guy?"

Lee chuckled at my intonation and sat down, "I think the more appropriate question is 'when'." I raised an eyebrow and watched as Lee looked down at the water bottle in his hands contemplatively, "Gaara and I first met about two hundred years ago during the reign of the tenth shogun, although I don't remember it." He looked up and smiled at the confusion on my face. "It was my past life."

"Oh…" I said sitting down next to him and glancing outside again. "Then, if you don't remember it, how do the two of you know each other now?"

Lee was looking out to the patio as well where Gaara and Naruto were talking. "Gaara tracked me down. You remember his ability to track souls? Well, he waited two hundred years for me to be reborn in order to find me again. He's been with me all my life, in fact some of my earliest memories are of him."

I blinked, a bit impressed by that. A small envious voice in the back of my mind wondered how strong Gaara's feelings must've been to go so far and wait so long to be with Lee again. Something of what I was thinking must have shown on my face because Lee snorted, failing to suppress a smile.

"Gaara and I didn't have _that_ kind of relationship back then. At the time, I was a ninja who'd been injured pretty badly after a mission. I was only meant to be a passing curiosity to him but…" and he turned that smile to me, "Gaara's curiosity got the better of him and he stuck around longer than he meant to."

He paused and I watched his face carefully as his smile slipped minutely, "I'd suffered some crushing injuries on that last mission and was bedridden. Gaara told me he'd been watching me for a short time before that and noticed how I'd been all but abandoned as I got worse. My ninja brothers brought me food and water but little else. No one came to visit or treat me, not that there was much that could've been done for me at the time, medicine being what it was."

Lee's eyes seemed to lose focus and he stared at his water bottle again as if lost in thought… or in memories that he should not have. "I eventually developed pneumonia and I knew my time was running out when Gaara finally decided to reveal himself after days of watching me from outside my window. I was so happy for the company that it didn't matter to me whether he was human or demon. I welcomed him inside and bemoaned my inability to be a good host." Lee chuckled and shook his head, "No wonder I confused him so much."

He leaned his elbows on his knees and looked at me again, still with that subdued little smile. "You see, that's why he came looking for me again. I'd enjoyed his company in my last days; had even asked him to be there when I died…"

He paused with a faraway expression on his face and I finally had to ask, "You said you don't remember it, but you talk about it like you do."

His smile recovered and he sat up again. That was another thing I'd noticed about Lee in the time that I'd known him: he never let himself get too down. There was always a smile on his face but unlike with most other people I'd known, it wasn't a mask to hide his true emotions. It was just the way Lee was. "I _don't_ remember it but… I've been around Gaara so much that I think we've established some kind of connection because… when I was really young, Gaara used to think about this a lot. He hadn't understood why I'd needed him there, why I'd been able to smile on my deathbed. He'd had so many questions and waited for me to be reincarnated so that he could finally ask me.

"He waited for me to grow up a bit first but all throughout my childhood I remember having these dreams... Whenever Gaara was around, I'd dream of being in a room in a traditional Japanese house with a forest outside the window. I dreamt it in such detail that I could tell you how many tatami mats were on the floor, what weapons were placed on a stand near the bed, their names and how they were arranged – long before I knew anything about weapons. I could describe the room in perfect detail right down to the smell of tsubaki drifting in from the garden outside.

"I was about twelve when I began to see Gaara and myself in those dreams, as if from the outside looking in. So I asked him about them and he told me I must be picking up on his memories of my final days. That's when he asked me what he'd been waiting to ask for the past two hundred years." Lee shook his head, still smiling and finally took a swig from his bottled water.

"It seems like it should've been such an easy thing to understand," he said continuing, "but Gaara hadn't been able to make sense of my very human need for companionship in that other life. Things between us changed pretty quickly after that talk. Once he was satisfied that his questions had been answered he no longer had a reason to stay by my side. He should've picked up and left but he didn't."

He looked me in the face and his ever-present smile slipped again, probably without his even noticing. "Be grateful that you're going to have Naruto-kun with you forever. Relationships are never perfect but they are special and you've been given the chance to keep yours for a long time. Gaara promised me that he would continue to be by my side until I died and that he would look for me again and again for as long as he was alive. But I won't be the same person in my next life and I won't remember how much I loved him…" he trailed off for a moment and then shook his head as if to banish his sudden bout of melancholy.

"You guys have nothing to worry about though!" Lee's smile turning optimistic. "The two of you can never be torn apart!" he said jumping to his feet. "The strength of your bond and the good fortune to have met Naruto-kun in the Springtime of your Youth will…uh…" My sudden hysterical laughing is what interrupted Lee's speech on youth before it could really pick up speed. The almost manic turn in the conversation had gotten to me… that and the sudden fear that Lee was going to go off on the sort of energetic tangent that would leave me slightly disturbed. Lee chuckled a bit and scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry, my uncle's way better at that than I am."

I waved a hand and tried to regain control of myself. Lee used to frighten me just a little with his speeches the first couple of days I came to his dojo for practice but I eventually found myself unable to keep a straight face. Lee chuckled and sat down again, knowing I didn't mean any harm. "Well, what about you guys?" He asked, cocking his head curiously.

"What about us?" I asked distractedly. My attention was suddenly on Naruto who had glanced back into the dojo when he heard me laughing and smiled at me.

"How many months has it been since you guys got together? Or has it been a few years?" he asked cheerily.

I turned my head to look at him oddly, "What makes you think it's been that long?" I asked surprised by his question.

He blinked, "Was I wrong? …A few weeks then?"

"…I met Naruto the day before I met you." I answered a bit reluctantly… and if his eyes were any rounder, they'd have taken up his entire face. "What?" I blurted.

"Oh uh," He said and smiled in an obvious effort to deflect away from his gaping a moment ago. "Nothing! It's nothing. Never mind."

Another thing I liked about Lee? He was a terrible liar. "It's not 'nothing'." I insisted, feeling a scowl lining my features. I was a bit angry because I never pestered people about what they said or thought. It usually didn't matter to me but this was different. Why had he reacted like it was a shock? Like I'd just blurted out that I believed in space aliens rather than that I'd known Naruto for just under a week.

Lee looked away from me uncomfortably and shook his head. "It's not my place to pry into your personal business Sasuke-kun. Forget I said anything."

Ok, that's it. "Lee, if this has something to do with my…" The word 'relationship' seemed a bit …loaded somehow, "situation with Naruto, I want to know what's on your mind." I urged in manner I was aware was uncharacteristic of me. There was a hint of insecurity that was slowly creeping up on me in response to his reaction. Why did it matter how long I'd known Naruto? …Wait a sec… he'd asked me how long we'd been 'together'…

Just as that unsettling realization was beginning to dawn on me, Lee finally spoke up. "Ok." He said decisively and appeared to gear himself up for what he was about to say next, "If you insist then… I hope you'll forgive a personal question but… do you… love… him?" he asked, the hesitation and reluctance clear in his tone.

I blanched, "What?!"

"Naruto-kun," Lee continued, taking my reaction in stride, "Are you… in love with him?" His own cheeks turned a subtle shade of pink from restating the question.

"I, uh…" I glanced nervously outside but it didn't appear as though Naruto had heard anything. What the hell kind of question was that? "What does that have to do with anything?" I asked desperately. I … hadn't been prepared for that kind of question, let alone how to answer it.

Lee took another swig from his water bottle but this time it looked deliberate, a nervous distraction to avoid looking at me. "I see… I just figured that you were a bit more reserved; maybe a bit more private with your feelings and that's why it wasn't as obvious with you as it was with him."

I stared at him until he finally looked at me. "What is obvious?" I deadpanned, although I had a sinking suspicion I knew what he meant.

Lee raised an eyebrow at me. "Haven't you noticed the way he treats you? The way he's so protective of you? He's always considerate of your feelings, of your opinions, always aware of you in some way. That's why I thought you'd been together longer."

'Well, there are perfectly reasonable explanations for that.' I thought remembering his obligation to protect me and his ability to sense my emotions but just as I took in a breath to speak, Lee shook his head as if he already knew what I was going to say.

"I know what you're thinking and it's more than that. Do you remember how Naruto-kun reacted when I first offered to give you taijutsu lessons? It took us twenty minutes to talk him down because he was convinced it was too risky. The potential for accidents to happen during training is really high and he didn't like the thought that at the speed we would be moving, he might not get to you in time. That's not the reaction someone has out of obligation to you, Sasuke-kun. You've told me that Naruto-kun is forced by the spell to protect you from harm in the case of an accident but he has no obligation to actively try and prevent those accidents from happening or to show any concern for you should anything happen to you."

I was staring hard at my shoes. Great, now it was me trying to avoid looking at him. I didn't even understand why I wanted to deny what he was saying so much. My eyes darted to the left and I watched Naruto still talking to Gaara outside. Lee scooted a bit closer to me and said in a near whisper, "You should see the way he looks at you when he thinks no one's watching. If you had, you wouldn't have to wonder whether or not it was friendly concern or something more. You'd know."

"It's not really him I'm worried about." I found myself saying. I'd have to be dense not to have noticed there was something going on all those times he's kissed me in the past few days. I just didn't know what that 'something' was. Naruto used any excuse to touch me, whether it was an arm around my shoulders, or a casual brush against my hand, or leaning against me when we sat next to each other. At first it had unsettled me; I wasn't used to being touched and certainly not in ways that made me feel comfortable, but Naruto refused to be discouraged and I couldn't deny that it was slowly getting easier.

At night we would share the bed in my room, ostensibly because there was nowhere else to put Naruto who needed to remain close. But I'd be lying to myself if I said either one of us put any effort into finding alternate sleeping arrangements. Naruto would crawl into my bed every night, and every night he would reach out in his sleep and drape himself all over me like a second blanket.

And like an idiot, I would let him. If he reached for me, there was no way I could deny him. I was embarrassed to admit it even to myself. I was afraid to lose what I had with him and I didn't even know what that was. He seemed to… to feel _something_ for me but how could I accept that? How could I accept what Lee was telling me? Naruto and I hadn't known each other long enough for something to develop between us and I sure as hell didn't believe in that 'love at first sight' crap. In fact, I was afraid that I was responding to him out of a need for someone, _anyone_, and it was only Naruto because he had conveniently fallen into my lap when I'd been so desperate for someone to care about me.

"I'm attracted to him." I admitted in a voice so low even I almost hadn't heard it. "I just can't be sure of anything more than that. Six days is not long enough to know if you lo… if you feel _that way_ about someone. Which is why I don't get him!" I said finally raising my head and turning a frustrated glare towards my demon guardian. "He acts like it's the most natural thing in the world for him! Like he has no doubts! Like he's known me all my life instead of just six days!" Like it's easy for him! Or my worst fear… Like he's forcibly compelled to respond to my needs and has no real emotions invested…

I heaved an aggravated sigh and got to my feet just as there was a knock on the open door. The secretary who worked at the front bowed slightly, "Your take-out order is here Lee-san," She said timidly.

Lee smiled brightly, "Thanks! I'll be right there." She bowed again and walked away. Lee got up and turned that smile at me understandingly. "Why don't you take a shower and relax a bit? The locker rooms are still under renovation but you can use the shower in my room. I'll go see about lunch." Lee patted my shoulder, his body language oozing optimism on my behalf. I barely kept myself from groaning or jumping at the casual touch and just watched awkwardly as he walked out of the dojo.

I had a sudden realization that whatever my situation with Naruto, he wasn't going to judge me for it. Lee was a good guy. I took a deep breath and let out another big sigh as I turned and walked towards the outer walkway where Naruto and Gaara were seated. A cold breeze swept through the dojo and I stopped suddenly when a wave of dizziness hit me. It was over quickly but when it passed I blinked my eyes and my vision was suddenly much sharper. I've always had 20/20 vision but this… I could see the wood grain through the varnish on the floor under my feet, I could see the detail on individual leaves in the trees outside as if I had them under a microscope. I closed my eyes and shook my head, alarmed. This was not normal!

I heard a few loud voices next to me and opened my eyes but there was no one there. Then I looked up, realizing that I was hearing Naruto and Gaara's conversation from the garden outside and got a real shock. There were bright… I don't know what to call them… auras? Around both of them. The color of the aura around Naruto I immediately recognized as the fiery red of his chakra. I'd never been able to see it in its relaxed state before. Then what they were talking about caught my attention.

"Have you completely taken leave of your senses?" Gaara asked in that classic monotone that was unique to him. His cool blue aura remained undisturbed next to the agitated swirls of the one around the demon fox next to him.

"Please, Gaara? Pretty please?" Naruto asked pressing his hands together in front of his face in supplication. "I told you I can't do it myself! My senses are too keyed to Sasuke right now; all of my powers revolve around him. I tried looking for her the other day when we were in Shibuya and it was impossible! Not only are there too many humans in this city but every time I tried spreading my senses outward they got yanked back to Sasuke like he's some kind of magnet! My senses are only concerned with: where is Sasuke? Is Sasuke ok? What's happening around Sasuke? Could that guy over there be getting too close to Sasuke and why? Gyah!" Naruto shoved both hands into his hair and ruffled the locks to further express his frustration.

For one shocked moment I just stood there. Then I shot towards the wall next to the sliding door so that I could keep listening. The extra sharp sight and hearing was already fading back to normal but my mind was too preoccupied with what I'd just heard to notice or care.

"I can't." Gaara said simply and calmly.

"Aw, c'mon Gaara!" Naruto whined.

Gaara shook his head, "I've never met her. It would be like trying to find a single piece of straw in a haystack."

"Um, I think the term is 'needle in a haystack'."

There was a pause, "No, 'needle' implies I know what I'm looking for."

"I told you all about her already! C'mon! There's no telling how many times she's been reincarnated by now. I need to find her!"

"If I remember what you said correctly, it is she who promised to find you. Wasn't she coming back with her memories just so she could recognize you?"

"Yeah but she's probably been reincarnated two or three times by now, or more! Demons don't reincarnate so what if she thinks I'm dead? What if she gave up? What if she doesn't remember me anymore?"

"You don't know how long it'll take her to reincarnate. It took Lee two hundred years before he came back."

"Yeah but I've been stuck in that tablet longer than that! Besides, she said she'd reincarnate right away. I need to look for her, it's been way to long but I can't do it myself anymore, I need your help." A pause, "Here, use this!"

I got closer to the edge and peeked around the corner. Naruto had pulled his necklace out from inside his hoodie, taken it off and all but shoved it in Gaara's face.

Gaara responded by recoiling sharply away from it. "Do you have any idea what you're holding?"

"It's her necklace. Sure, it's been in my possession longer by now but it used to belong to her; she made it. You can still get an impression off this though, right?" Naruto offered hopefully.

There was a moment of silence before Gaara finally spoke. "So let me get this straight." He began, giving Naruto a Look. "You want me, a _demon_, to find the reincarnation of an Inari _priestess_… using her _warded_ necklace."

"This thing's not warded." Naruto said giving first the necklace and then Gaara an incredulous look.

If Gaara could've facepalmed, he would have. "What kind of demon are you Naruto?"

"Hey!" Naruto huffed, offended.

"I mean what kind _specifically_." Gaara asked with a sigh, as if this conversation was suddenly trying his patients.

"Oh, you mean… I'm a fox, of course." Gaara continued to look at him imploringly for several moments until Naruto got the picture. "…A nine-tails?" Naruto said, raising an eyebrow.

"Exactly," Gaara continued as if to say 'bingo!' …only with much less enthusiasm. "You were raised in an Inari temple, by Inari priestesses, and you are a kyuubi – of course the necklace doesn't hurt you. Foxes, and the kyuubi especially, are the favored and beloved messengers of Inari. None of the goddess' powers will hurt you but I do not belong to your goddess and cannot touch that necklace."

Naruto looked crestfallen. "Oh…" he said, pulling the necklace back. "I see."

Gaara saw the disappointment in Naruto's face and sighed. The sand in the rock garden stirred and a small amount of it arched in the air and settled in the space between them, forming itself into the shape of hand. "…I'll try."

The transformation of Naruto's face was instantaneous. He smiled wide and dropped the necklace into the palm of the hand of sand. "Thanks a ton, Gaara. I owe you one."

Gaara grunted a response and stared suspiciously at the necklace, now in his possession, as if it were going to attack him. When it didn't, the hand of sand became a fist around it and settled by Gaara's knee. "I can't guarantee it'll work. Normally I have at least an impression of that person's soul by having met them once. I don't usually take impressions off of objects to find people, especially objects that have been apart from their original owners as long as this has."

"Even if you can narrow it down for me, I'd appreciate it." Naruto started, suddenly much more solemn. "If I keep trying like I have been, Sasuke's going to find out something's up and… I'm not ready for him to know about her yet."

I stopped breathing as I processed that. Did I understand that right? Naruto was trying to find some woman and he didn't want me to know about it…

"Why do you want to keep this from your boyfriend?" Gaara asked with the tone of genuine curiosity.

Naruto's back was to me but his head was down, staring at his feet. "Sasuke's not… my boyfriend… exactly…"

I didn't hear anything else after that. I braced myself against the wall because it felt like the ground had been swept out from under me. Then the beginnings of a chuckle startled me and suddenly I felt like laughing. 'Of course I wasn't his _boyfriend'_ I thought, the word for some reason sounding ridiculous in my mind. 'When did we ever agree to that?'

I made a physical effort to get myself under control, took a deep breath, and walked outside. The motions were purely mechanical, I didn't even feel like I was really there. I kicked Naruto in the backside, "Oy, dobe. Get up, I need to go take a shower."

"Ow!" Naruto glared at me over his shoulder. A perverse sort of satisfaction completely failed to come over me, I just felt numb. "A tap on the shoulder would've worked just as well, asshole!" I didn't answer him, just turned around and walked away. "Hey! Sasuke, wait up!"

I heard him scramble to his feet and chase after me but I didn't stop. I picked up my duffle bag and walked out of the room into the hallway. Naruto finally caught up with me and peered into my face, frowning. "Sasuke, what's wrong?" I knew he was sensing my unease and I silently cursed that ability of his. It always made it impossible for me to lie to him.

"None of your business." I finally answered, entering Lee's room. I spotted his bathroom immediately and made a beeline for it.

"Sasuke stop!" Naruto grabbed my arm and I yanked it out of his grasp.

"I said it's none of your business!"

"Like hell! In case you forgot, we're joined at the hip! Your problems are my problems!"

"Yeah, and I know just how much you're enjoying that." I said bitterly.

He blinked. "Huh? Where did that come from?!"

I shook my head and started for the door again. I didn't want him to know I'd been listening in on his conversation with Gaara. He grabbed my arm again just as I reached the door, "Sasuke…"

"Let go, damnit!" I snapped. Naruto pulled his hand away as if stung and that's when I remembered my power over him. "Shut up about it, Naruto! Just stay out here until I'm done."

Naruto had opened his mouth to say something to me but immediately closed it in response to the order I'd given him. If looks could kill, then the glare he was giving me definitely would've but I neither flinched nor backed down. Quickly, I turned around, entered the bathroom, and slammed the door in his face.

Cursing under my breath, I ignored the stinging in my eyes and dropped my duffle bag on the floor. I quickly took off my karate gi and stepped into the shower, turning the water on as hot as it would go. As I stood there soaking I resisted the urge to punch the wall as I remembered the things Naruto had said. It was obvious that he was inconvenienced by his connection to me. Of course, it's not like being forced to protect someone who is in constant danger was something he would enjoy; especially if doing that was getting in the way of finding someone, 'a _woman_' my mind supplied helpfully, who was obviously more important to him… than I was.

'So much for Lee's reassurances...' I thought resentfully. 'If this is how Naruto really feels… maybe all of his affections so far have just been in response to my need for someone after all. No more than a demon bound by a spell, fulfilling the spell's obligations.' The thought made me feel sick to my stomach. I washed quickly using whatever soaps I found and stayed in the spray for a few more minutes trying to gather my composure. My reaction to all this finally had me admitting that I cared a lot more about Naruto and how he felt about me than I'd thought. A lot of good it did me now…

Another wave of dizziness struck me just then and I braced a hand against the wall to steady myself. It was gone fast but that extra sharp sight was back again. Along with the hearing; all of a sudden the sound of water hitting the tiled floor of the shower was deafening. I was looking to my feet as soon as the thought occurred to me and gasped. Stumbling back, I hit the wall of the shower stall watching as a huge _transparent_ snake surrounded by a purple aura coiled itself around the drain near where my feet had been.

"Sasuke!" Naruto threw the door open, his need to protect me overriding my order for him to wait outside. The snake hissed angrily as if it knew it had been discovered and quickly darted around my feet before I could move. Just as Naruto reached the shower and pulled the curtains aside, it reared its large head and bit the ankle of my left foot.

"Shit!" I cursed, stumbling to get away. Naruto caught me before I could fall flat on my ass but before he could do anything about the snake, it disappeared through the wall. I heard Naruto use a few curse words in classical Japanese that I'd never heard before as he turned off the water and helped me limp towards the toilet so I could sit down. Wet, naked, and now cold, I looked around for something to cover and dry myself off with if only to have something to focus on besides the fact that I once again had to endure the humiliation of having been rescued. Luckily, my duffle bag was within reach. I quickly pulled my towel out and draped it over my lap.

To his credit, Naruto completely ignored my nudity and kneeled down in front of me to inspect my ankle. It was bleeding slightly and it stung, but that was about it. "It doesn't look that bad…" he said, still inspecting it and eventually heaved an aggravated sigh. "I'm sorry. I was late again." He said shaking his head, genuinely angry with himself. "The bite will hurt for a while but it won't give you trouble. I'm immune to demon venoms so it should heal ok. You've got so much of my chakra in you by now that it should take care of it. In fact, you don't even feel human any… more..." He looked up at me and trailed off.

I had to admit that although I'd been listening to him I'd been a little distracted with watching how his aura flared and responded to his emotions. However, when Naruto finally looked at my face I was unsettled by the look of shock on his. "What?" I asked confused with the way he was looking at me.

"Stand up, Sasuke." He said, getting up and reaching over to help me get to my feet.

"What? Why?" I asked, but didn't resist. There was something about the look on his face that made me uneasy and I decided not to argue. He helped me up and I quickly wrapped the towel around my waist before Naruto pulled me, limping to the mirror over the sink. I inhaled sharply.

My irises were red.

They were red the way Naruto's eyes glow red whenever he gets angry, but there was something different. I leaned over the sink to get a closer look and realized that the three tiny symbols of the curse mark from my shoulder were in my eyes. Some instinct told me this had nothing to do with the demon snake that'd bitten me just now. This had to be the reason I'd been able to see it in the first place.

I didn't realize I'd said that aloud until Naruto pulled me back and held my face level with his so that he could look into my eyes. "You're right, that snake should've been invisible to human eyes but… all of that demon chakra inside you must be giving you some of my abilities." He was shaking his head, a worried expression falling over his features. "… But not enough to make a difference. I only knew to come help you because you freaked when you saw it. If you hadn't seen it and it had been something much worse, I might've never got to you in time. I'm tired of getting there too late. I won't be late next time, Sasuke. I don't care if you don't like it but I'm not leaving your side anymore."

His words made my heart skip a beat and I was suddenly very aware that Naruto was still holding my face in his hands. I wanted so badly to believe that he really cared as much as he seemed to; that the look in his eyes right now was as honest as I wanted it to be and not a lie born of obligation.

His thumb was caressing the side of my face and he began to lean in slightly. I turned my head away and blocked his lips with the palm of my hand. I was screaming on the inside but I couldn't let him touch me when I knew he didn't mean it. Naruto stopped and gently removed my hand from his mouth, giving me a puzzled look.

"Just… just wait outside while I get dressed. Besides, you have to help me get my eyes back to normal before we can go anywhere." I said limping back slightly, my ankle was still throbbing.

Naruto frowned, took a step back as if to fulfill my order but stopped abruptly and gritted his teeth, fighting the spell. He crossed his arms over his chest determinedly, the brief flash of confusion I'd seen in his eyes now covered up by stubbornness. "Nuh uh, no way. I already told you, Sasuke. You're not leaving my sight anymore. I can't protect you if you keep sending me away."

"Fine! Then just turn around!" I said unwilling to argue.

Naruto sighed in relief as the spell released him and did as I asked, allowing me to get dressed as quickly as I could. As soon as I indicated I was done Naruto turned back around and crouched down to inspect my ankle again. It was still bleeding slightly so he looked around the bathroom and found a first aid kit under the sink. I sat back down on the toilet seat and let Naruto bandage the bite. As soon as he was done he looked up at my eyes again from his crouched position on the floor and shook his head. "I don't think there's anything I can do about your eyes, Sasuke. It's definitely because of my chakra but even if I could take it back I don't think I'd want to. It's probably a good idea for you to have demon sight the next time you get attacked by something anyway."

I glared at him. "Oh, of course. It's also not going to draw any attention at all. Red is a perfectly natural eye color for humans."

Naruto stood up and crossed his arms again. "Maybe you're just too worked up. I have to work to calm myself down when my powers get out of control. Maybe that's what you need to do."

There was a knock on the door. "You guys ok in there?" Lee's voice said through the door.

I snatched my duffle bag off the ground in frustration and limped my way to the door on my own, refusing any more of Naruto's help. He thought I should calm down. I almost laughed. Thanks to him my emotions were a jumbled mess, my eyes were blood red, and I had just been bitten by a demon snake… Oh yeah, I was going to calm down real fast. I heard Naruto make a long-suffering sigh behind me and follow me out of the bathroom where I gave Lee and Gaara quite the surprise.

We sat together to have lunch after I explained what happened in the bathroom but I didn't eat much. I mostly watched Naruto inhale his udon, mumbling his regret that it wasn't ramen, and noticed Gaara give Lee a few worried looks as said taijutsu master ate the sushi on his plate with relish. The sand demon was undoubtedly worried about there having been a demon attack in their home and what that might mean for his human lover. My gaze returned to the oblivious Lee and for the next half hour that we sat, ate and chatted, I was overcome with a deep and guilt-ridden sense of envy.

00000

"What the hell, Sasuke?! What's with the cold shoulder all of a sudden?!" I felt a muscle twitching above my eye and started counting to ten… again. "Don't be such an ass! We could've gotten back to the apartment a lot faster if you'd just let me get a little closer!" Naruto was practically yelling at the top of his lungs. It seemed as though Naruto insisted that whenever he was angry, the whole world had to know about it. I tried to ignore the stares he was attracting and walked a little faster.

Late that afternoon after we said our goodbyes, Naruto had approached me intending to use his powers to transport us directly back to the apartment but there was no way I was going to let him get that close me again after everything that had happened. I ordered Naruto to keep a distance of five feet away from me unless it was absolutely vital to my survival and decided to walk the twelve blocks into the city to my apartment building instead.

My eyes still weren't back to normal so Lee let me borrow a pair of sunglasses before we left the dojo. Thanks to that I was able to covertly see every curious and offended stare shot in our direction in glaring detail as we continued to walk along the sidewalk with Naruto yelling at me from behind. "Stop being such a stubborn prick and let me help you! You're gonna walk the next ten blocks on that ankle just 'cause you're mad at me?" I didn't answer; partly because the ankle _was_ throbbing. I'd barely managed to stuff it into my shoes, what with the mild swelling and the bandage, but I refused to accept any more help from him and let my silence speak for itself.

"Fine then! See if I care! It's your busted foot Sasuke, not mine!" Naruto yelled petulantly. My hands fisted and I bit my lip. I was not going to rise to the bait and cause a scene in public. 'Just keep walking, Sasuke.' I told myself. 'Don't turn around, don't even acknowledge that he's there. He's just some loud mouthed psycho. You don't even know him.'

I shoved my way through the crowd on the city sidewalk, sighing in relief that Naruto seemed to have run out of steam.

Two seconds later, "Why're you so mad?! Look, I'm sorry I couldn't fix your eyes…"

"Shut up!" I yelled back, stopping in my tracks and turning around. Naruto ground to a halt and immediately stopped talking. I adjusted the sunglasses nervously and looked around. People were still staring, now especially since Naruto and I were standing still and blocking the flow of the crowd. I drew my attention back to Naruto in frustration, "We'll talk about _that_ later, got it moron?!" I ground out, doing my best to indicate that this wasn't the time or the place. He glared but gave me one short nod.

Relieved that he was going to be quiet for a while, I began to turn around when a tall foreigner knocked into me. I stumbled toward the edge of the sidewalk and set my foot down wrong while trying to compensate. It sent an unexpected jolt of pain through my swollen ankle and I lost my balance. Naruto was there before I even realized what had happened. He grabbed me from behind before I fell into the street and I felt the rush of wind on my face as several cars sped by us at just that moment.

My heart was beating overtime from the near-miss but when I looked around, this time no one seemed to have noticed. I glanced up into Naruto's face and he raised his eyebrows as if to ask if I was ok, still unable to speak unless I rescinded my previous order. I swallowed hard and nodded, moving away from him to stand on my own. "I'm fine." I said quietly and watched as he took a few reluctant steps back, putting the obligatory space between us. I squashed the guilty feeling that threatened to creep up on me and started to slowly make my way down the sidewalk again, moving as far away from the street as I could.

00000

I was limping pretty badly by the time we finally made it into the lobby of my apartment high rise. It was a cavernous space. The front desk was to the right of the doors, a lounge and bar lay on the left with the private elevators for residents directly in front. There was polished granite on the floors, the walls were covered in warm paneled Japanese cedar, a grand chandelier hung from a high ceiling, and soft music was playing over hidden speakers. It had always reminded me of an upscale hotel lobby. Itachi had always had more simple tastes than this but the apartment had been a gift from our father and he insisted that my brother could accept no less.

I was barely half way across the floor of the lobby when Naruto came around to stand in front of me, blocking my way. He glared at me and pointed to his throat. I sighed inwardly but nodded. "Go ahead." I said, looking around. There were only a handful of people in the lobby; two security guards behind the front desk and a few residents in the lounge. Good, I didn't want to worry about someone overhearing something they shouldn't thanks to Naruto's lack of tact.

"Take back the five foot order and let me help you." Naruto said seriously. I'd expected him to yell at me like he had outside but this… this was a quiet demand.

It made my blood boil. Why did he bother? He'd made it abundantly clear to Gaara that I was nothing but an inconvenience. The possibility that he might only be pretending to care stung worse than I cared to admit. "I don't need to do a damn thing and I definitely don't need any help from you. I made it here on my own just fine! I can make the last few feet to the elevator without you!"

I registered the hurt in his eyes with some confusion but never had the time to react to it. What happened next took only a matter of seconds but I remembered every detail as though it happened in slow motion. A loud groaning and cracking sound interrupted us and I watched as a large amount of dust rained down from the ceiling and onto the ground around us. A few quarter sized chunks of plaster clinked onto the floor between us and with a sudden sinking feeling I looked back into Naruto's face for a split second before my gaze was drawn upwards. The crack on the ceiling widened as I watched. The crystals on the grand chandelier chimed as it came free of the screws bolting it to the ceiling and fell a short distance before catching on the electrical wiring that fed electricity to the lights. Sparks flew as it hung swinging from the wiring for less than a second before the wire snapped under the weight.

For one ridiculous moment as the massive chandelier came free of the ceiling, I wondered how many times things were going to fall on me.

"Naru…" I started in a horrified whisper as I took a step back on my throbbing ankle, knowing that the chandelier was falling too fast and I would not get out of the way in time.

He was on me before I even finished speaking. With inhuman speed, Naruto shoved into me and we fell together, rolling away from the center of the floor. There was an enormous crash not even a split second later and we were covered in a rain of dust and crystal as the chandelier shattered on the floor inches away from us. I landed hard on my back with Naruto on top of me, shielding me from the debris.

"Naruto?!" I said trying to look into his face as soon as the danger was over. I hadn't been half as afraid for myself as I was terrified that Naruto had gotten hurt saving me.

Naruto shook his head, a small cloud of dust and plaster coming free of the blond locks, "Wow," he said looking at the remains of the massive chandelier and then me. "You're not hurt are you?" he asked, concerned. I breathed a sigh of relief. If he could ask me that so carelessly then he must be ok.

"Uchiha-sama!" There was the sound of hurried footsteps and suddenly Naruto was lifted off of me and there was someone else behind me, helping me off the ground. "Uchiha-sama, are you alright?!" It was the security guards who had been standing behind the front desk. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the other guard dusting off Naruto's clothes and asking him the same question. That's when I realized Lee's sunglasses were hanging half off my face. I felt a rush of panic and quickly shoved them back on before anyone noticed and started asking questions I couldn't answer.

I cleared my throat to say I was fine but as soon as he let me go I faltered slightly on my bad ankle. Naruto made to come help but stopped suddenly, held back by the five foot order. The security guard reached over and grabbed my arm to keep me from falling. "Uchiha-sama, allow us to call a paramedic to see to your..."

"NO!" The guard looked at me in shock. "I… I'm fine I don't need any medical help." With all the demon chakra in me, I was afraid they'd find more than just a bad case of red eye. "Naruto," The demon in question looked up. I pulled my arm out the guard's grip, put my weight on my good leg and reached out to him. "My cousin; he'll help me up to our apartment. I'll be fine."

I saw Naruto's lips morph into a barely restrained smile as he walked over to me and slipped between me and the guard. "I got this." He said pulling my arm around his neck and grinning at the guards. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes and allowed Naruto to steer me around the ruined chandelier to the elevators. As the elevator doors dinged and we entered I heard one of the guards mumble a confused "Cousin?" before the doors closed.

"Ok, what the hell Sasuke?" Naruto asked as soon as I hit the button for the top floor of the high rise. "Are these accidents gonna happen back to back like this from now on?"

I shook my head, "This shouldn't be happening. It's too soon. The accidents aren't supposed to get this bad until I'm much older unless…" My eyes widened and I quickly turned to Naruto. "You didn't see my father down there did you?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "I was a little busy diving under projectile chandeliers. Besides, I didn't think your old man was supposed to be back until tomorrow." He was right of course but as the elevator dinged and the doors opened I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. I had no explanation for the severity and frequency of the accidents today and I knew I wasn't going to be completely at ease until I found one.

Naruto helped me limp to the door and I let us inside. Despite my unease, once we closed the doors behind us I breathed an internal sigh of relief. In the week that Naruto and I had been here, I'd come to think of this apartment as a haven. It was the safest I'd felt since the death of my brother. I glanced at Naruto out of the corner of my eye as I carefully toed off my sneakers. I could see the turbulence in his chakra with my enhanced vision and as weird as that still felt, I instinctively knew it meant there was something bothering him. The brief sense of relief and triumph he'd expressed downstairs when I accepted his help was long gone.

Despite the fact that I was still upset with him I couldn't help a bit of reluctant curiosity. 'He's probably thinking the same thing I am.' I thought as Naruto, uncharacteristically silent, steered me towards the couch in the center of the living room. 'Something's happening with my curse. Something about today is different; something is making things worse.'

After I sat on the couch and got comfortable he brought my swollen ankle up, pulled the sock off and placed a throw pillow under it. I winced, both in pain and at the sight of it. "It looks more like a sprain than a bite." I commented offhand. It was very swollen and there was a faint aura around the bandage as if it were emitting its own light; a violet slightly dimmer than the aura of the snake that had bitten me.

Naruto was staring at it with a concerned expression that was making me nervous, but before I could say anything he stood up abruptly and said, "I'm going for the first aid kit."

"Naruto..?" I didn't know what I was going to ask but Naruto ignored me and disappeared into the bathroom. 'Damnit, I shouldn't have to be worried about that idiot too.' I thought fuming. I didn't know if there was something wrong with him or if he was hiding the possibility that he knew something was wrong with me. Just then I felt the enhanced sight finally fading and took off Lee's sunglasses. I tossed them onto the coffee table carelessly and rubbed at my eyes with a short sigh of relief. At least for now that was one problem solved.

I looked up when Naruto walked back into the room carrying the kit, still quiet. 'How ironic, I've been trying to get him to shut up for the past hour and now that he has, it's creeping me out'. He kneeled down in front of my ankle without looking at me and started unwrapping the soiled bandage. "Naruto?" I asked hesitantly. No response. "What the hell is wrong with you?" So… maybe I just couldn't take it anymore.

Naruto took the bandage off and tossed it aside then opened the first aid kit. "I'm sorry," he said, still not looking at me.

I blanched, "For what?" That was unexpected.

"Dunno." He said with a shrug.

I frowned, "Why are you apologizing to me when you don't even know what you're apologizing for?"

"Because I did something that made you mad but I don't know what it is." He said and moved my ankle slightly to study the bite. I winced but kept silent. "… and then I failed you again." He said looking at the wound for a moment before he shook his head and pulled out an antibacterial wipe to clean it with. "This is taking a while to heal but it's probably because you walked through half of Tokyo on it. You could've taken a bus Sasuke." He said managing to sound both berating yet still contrite.

I looked away stubbornly, allowing him to continue cleaning the wound and then suddenly realized I hadn't asked him to. I looked back at Naruto and it dawned on me that all this time, Naruto had been voluntarily attentive. It made me want to believe the things Lee said to me earlier; that I wasn't just an obligation to him. That he really did feel something for me and that it wasn't a compulsion of the spell. But then I remembered the woman I wasn't supposed to know about and it all seemed like nothing but a pipe dream.

I hissed as he lifted my leg to re-wrap the bite. "Sorry."

"Stop apologizing and you didn't fail me. Who knows what else that snake would've done if you hadn't gotten there when you did." I meant the words but my mind was in so many places that I heard them as if someone else had spoken them.

"You mean better late than never?" He made a short self-depreciating laugh that shocked me back to my senses. "Next time it could be something that really can kill you. What if I'm late then?"

I barely noticed when he finished wrapping the new bandage. Naruto was beating himself up for this; for something I didn't even blame him for, for not preventing something no one could've predicted. He was upset about it, concerned for me, and that only made me feel more frustrated and angry. I didn't understand it and I felt something inside me that had been building up since early this afternoon finally burst. "Why do you care?! I'm obviously standing in the way of what you really want!" 'Shit!' I half raised a hand to cover my own mouth but the damage had been done.

Naruto gave me this incredulous look, "What the hell are you talking about, Sasuke? 'What I really want'?" Naruto stood up abruptly and glared down at me. "You don't seem to have a clue about 'what I really want'. I didn't think I'd been that subtle about it for the past week but maybe I should spell it out for you! The only thing I want is _you_!"

Naruto's face flushed bright crimson and he paused for a long minute without looking at me. "I… don't know what's going through your head but if you think I see you as just some dumb human that I have to babysit from now till eternity then you're wrong. As long as this spell lets me stay by your side… I don't need anything else." His voice had trailed off a bit by the end of his outburst and the flush had migrated to his ears. Naruto coughed unnecessarily then abruptly he grabbed the first aid kit and the old bandages and fled to the kitchen. I was still staring at the spot where he'd been crouched long after he'd gone, wondering if I'd really heard what I thought I had.

The sound of the faucet startled me out of my musings and I looked across the room. The kitchen shared space with the living room, separated by a long bar counter. Naruto was at the sink washing his hands, looking everywhere but in my direction.

Did I misunderstand? Was I jumping to conclusions? I thought back to what I'd overheard and wondered if perhaps I'd made a mistake. I hadn't heard the whole conversation. For all I knew this mysterious woman was Naruto's long lost third cousin or something equally as benign. 'This isn't like me…' I was tired of speculating and tired of the jealously I was reluctant to admit -even to myself- that I was feeling. It was time I stopped acting like some stupid love scorned teenage schoolgirl and found out the truth.

When I looked back towards the kitchen Naruto had disappeared but I could hear him rummaging in one of the cabinets beneath the counter. I meant to ask who that woman was; to confess what I'd overheard. Instead what came out was: "Naruto, are you in love with me?"

Smooth, Sasuke. Real smooth. I wanted to crawl under the couch and die.

There was a loud clattering of pots and pans hitting the floor. I heard the sound of Naruto hastily shoving them back into the cabinet before he straightened up. Naruto's eyes darted all around the room as if looking for an escape route when he suddenly seemed to remember the small pot in his hands and turned his back to me to put it on the stove. "W-what did you say?"

I gripped the edge of the couch in annoyance. " . . ?!" I said more slowly, as if he were especially dim or didn't speak Japanese. Then I kicked myself. I was embarrassed to have to repeat it, and not a little afraid of the answer so I'd automatically gotten angry with him. It was my defense mechanism, my shield.

I was an idiot. 'That's exactly the way you ask someone if they love you,' I thought sarcastically. I groaned and buried my face in the palm of my hand.

"Y-yeah… I am."

I froze.

My eyes darted back to the kitchen where Naruto still had his back to me. He pulled a pitcher of filtered water from the refrigerator and I watched as he poured some into the pot. His movements were slow, deliberate. He was bracing himself.

"S-since when?" Was all I could manage.

Naruto made as if to turn and face me but stopped half way. He opened a drawer to his right instead, the movement almost seamless. As if that's what he'd meant to do all along. "Since day two." He said nonchalantly. He pulled a spoon out of the drawer and started fiddling with it while the water heated.

I felt my brows furrow, "How is that possible?" I said desperately. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so badly. "Nobody falls in love overnight and it's not like I made a great first impression…"

"It was the spell, okay?!" He said finally turning around to face me.

I sat there for a moment in stunned silence just staring at him as he confirmed my greatest fear. Wow… I didn't think it would hurt that badly. I noticed a trembling hand reaching up to clutch at my chest but I redirected it and wound up smoothing out my shirt unnecessarily.

Naruto must've felt that too because he dropped the spoon and almost ran out of the kitchen to me, "No! Sasuke, damnit!" he went back into the kitchen and quickly pulled something out of the pantry. "Don't misunderstand! This is still my choice. What I meant was you… you read the spell wrong!"

I looked up at him in confusion. Naruto was pouring something into the water. He found another spoon and stirred his concoction so fast I could see even from my vantage point that he was about to spill it. "That first day, I was a mess. It was like a tornado had gone through my head. I couldn't sort things out or sort through them but by the second day things were starting to fall into place." He turned off the stove and poured the contents of the pot into two mugs. Grabbing them and a handful of something else he came into the living room and handed me a mug.

Naruto sat on the floor beside the couch and held my eyes with his. "I had all those memories of yours. I remembered the things you'd been through, the things you'd done. Birthdays, vacations, that time you got lost in an amusement park when you were five." He said with a grin.

I groaned and turned away from him in embarrassment. In an effort to distract myself I took a small sip of what was in the mug and started. "Hot chocolate?"

"Unsweetened Belgian dark." Naruto said with a smirk. That's when I noticed the other item he'd brought with him. He opened and upended four packets of sugar into his chocolate all at once.

"Itachi used to make this for me." I said still shocked. My brother knew how our father treated me. It was rare when Itachi could convince him to let me stay over and it typically only happened after he flew into one of his rages and couldn't stand the sight of me. When I did come over, I was usually upset and Itachi would make me this same hot cocoa and sit with me until I felt better.

"I know." Naruto said solemnly. Touched, I felt my eyes drawn back to his, as though his blue irises had a magnetic pull that I was helpless to resist. "All of these memories…" he started, bringing us back to the matter at hand. "I feel like I was there with you. I see them in my mind like I experienced them right along with you. There's nothing I can do about those memories, they're in my head now and they're not gonna go away. I feel like I've known you for your whole life; like I've been there with you every time you've had some important experience."

"But you weren't." I said weakly.

"But that's what it feels like and I can't change that. The spell gave that to me and I don't regret it. I mean, after seeing all those things, feeling all those things, knowing you like I do now because of it… It's still up to me to decide how those memories make me feel about you."

I gripped my mug tightly, the heat seeping through the ceramic only slightly uncomfortable and completely ignored. "And…"

Naruto's smile was small, warm, and genuine. "… and I love you." There was only a small amount of pink on his face now. As if it'd been easier to say the second time around.

I didn't even want to hazard a guess at what my face must've looked like. It was one thing to speculate about someone's feelings for you and quite another to _know_. "I…" I didn't know how to respond, all I knew was that it felt like some enormous burden had been lifted off my chest. Like I could finally breathe again and I realized in that moment how much I'd needed to hear him say that.

Naruto's smile widened a bit at my speechlessness but when I made to give some kind of reply he reached up and placed a single finger over my lips. "You don't need to say anything Sasuke. I have a bit of an advantage over you since it's only been a week for you. Even if you're not sure how you feel now, I figure I have an eternity to make you love me back." He said boldly, taking his finger back.

Damn, how could he say that with a straight face? I turned away slightly, hiding my face behind the mug of cocoa. "It's not like I'm your… boyfriend, Naruto." I said randomly, remembering his words to Gaara earlier today. It had been a struggle to get the words out, especially _that_ one but I'd needed to say it...

Naruto took a sip of his cocoa, liked his lips, grinned at me and said, "Do you wanna be?"

I couldn't look at him. I knew my face was burning, there was just no way it couldn't be. I couldn't even speak. My throat felt tight and all I could do was nod. That was exactly what I'd needed him to say because now it was real. It felt … like something had clicked into place. Like a part of me that had been broken and incomplete was now whole. I'd never had this before, never thought I ever would and it felt so _right_. I'd been through a lot of dark times in my life but if that was somehow the price I had to pay to have him then I had no regrets. Deep down in a place where I was always honest with myself I admitted that falling in love with him wasn't going to be very hard.

I felt the couch cushion shift beneath me and looked up to see Naruto sitting on the edge beside me. He took the mug from my hands, setting it on the coffee table and placed a warm hand on my cheek. The world could've ended in that moment and I wouldn't have noticed. All I could see was the blue of his eyes slowly yielding to red in his emotional state and thought vaguely how well both colors suited him. So caught up was I that his lips on mine surprised me and I jumped. Naruto's lips had barely brushed me but he pulled back at my reaction, worried he'd done something wrong.

I would only realize that later because in that moment all I could think about was how he hadn't touched me long enough. So I brought my hand to the base of his skull, delighting in the feel of the short blonde hairs along my fingers before I pulled him forward into a bruising kiss. His lips on mine tasted like heaven, the sugar from his cocoa on my tongue was forbidden fruit. I was falling into him, loosing myself to him faster now that I knew there was no more need to hold back.

It was the first time I'd ever initiated a kiss.

Naruto seemed to realize that too and he growled appreciatively, deepening the kiss. He leaned into me and when that wasn't enough for him, I felt him shift. Naruto never broke the kiss and I was too caught up in it to care about what he was doing but I quickly realized what was happening when I felt his leg come to rest on the couch on my other side. When Naruto's weight settled on my lap he leaned forward, pressing his chest to mine and I hummed approvingly. He was warm and that warmth was seeping into me, filling the cold dark void that had once brought me to the edge. It seemed like ages ago that I had been so far gone that I'd longed for my life to end and now the one I'd hoped would be the instrument of my death had become my salvation instead.

Naruto tilted my head back and breathed a small sigh through his nose before gentling the kiss into something slow and savory. His tongue which had been warring against mine now moved in a gentle caress and I relaxed against him, letting him set the pace. He was right, we had all the time in the world.

He pulled back and kissed my lips once more, then moved his mouth along my jaw down to my throat. I turned my head slightly to give him better access and felt his tongue on my pulse. His small fangs grazed lightly against the skin alternating small kisses with gentle quips from his teeth and I shivered. My arms encircled him and held him tight, one hand remaining in his hair as Naruto abused a sensitive spot on my neck near the curse mark. The other hand sliding up his back feeling the heat of his body through the fabric of his cotton shirt.

There was a knock on the door. Naruto growled angrily and I tried not to laugh. As annoying and poorly timed as I agreed it was, seeing Naruto's frustrated and angry face when he half turned toward the door was almost worth it. There was another knock and he sighed dramatically and leaned back, sitting on my thighs. "We can ignore them right?" he asked pouting.

I snorted, "It's probably security making sure I made it up here in one piece. I better get it. I don't want them to try forcing their way in because they think something's wrong."

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "_You_ better get it?" he asked with a warning tone in his voice. "You're staying right here and off that foot, Sasuke." I stared at him for a moment, then heaved my legs over the side of the couch and sent him sprawling to the floor. "Gah! What the hell, Sasuke?!" he said scrambling to get back up.

I smirked, "Just coz we're dating doesn't mean you get to order me around."

"Damnit, Sasuke. You know it's not like…" I cut him off by grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him into a quick but gentle kiss.

When I pulled back I knew I was smiling and didn't care. The confused look on his face only made me smile wider. I caught a glance of the mugs of cold cocoa and sighed regretfully. "Why don't you make us another batch of hot chocolate and I'll send the security guards away. They'll probably want to talk to me anyway."

Naruto looked at my ankle hesitatingly but eventually shook his head and picked up the mugs. "That foot's never gonna heal…" he grumbled under his breath as he got up and walked toward the kitchen. There was another knock on the door, louder this time and Naruto growled out an angry 'coming!' as I got to my feet. The ankle didn't feel like it was in any better shape and I spared it a short worried glance before slowly limping my way towards the door. I was healing so fast these days that seeing how long the bite was taking was making me nervous. I didn't have time to think about that for long though because when I opened the door my stomach bottomed out and my blood ran cold.

My father grinned at me from the hallway, his demon Tobi was directly in front of me, hand poised to knock again at the door. Naruto was between us almost instantaneously. "Well, Sasuke?" My father asked, ignoring the threatening growls from the blonde demon in front of him. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" There was no dizziness to warn me this time when a flash of my enhanced sight returned and I panicked. I closed my eyes quickly, struggling to push it back and was surprised when it actually worked. Surprised but not relieved. I opened my eyes slowly, still feeling Naruto's chakra resisting my efforts to suppress it and hoped they hadn't noticed.

With a steadying breath I stilled my trembling hand on the door knob and my face went blank. I turned aside to let them in and when Naruto began to argue, I grabbed his shirt and pulled him aside so he wasn't still blocking the door. My mind was racing. What was my father doing here?! He wasn't due back until tomorrow! And as I watched him enter the apartment and do nothing more threatening than standing there taking his shoes off I felt an unprecedented well of anger stirring inside of me.

That anger frightened me a little. It'd been a very long time since I'd felt anything towards my father besides fear or indifference but having Naruto in my life had changed me. I was feeling things again and what I felt now was a simultaneous anger with that old fear because my father was violating the one space where I'd felt safe. He'd never come here even when my brother was still alive and indeed Fugaku was looking around the apartment with a deceptively innocent curiosity that validated that truth.

'He doesn't belong here', I thought angrily. I felt Naruto take the door from my hand and slam it closed, echoing my sentiment in his own more expressive way. My father turned around and shot a withering glance at the blonde demon, "Still haven't taught it any manners I see."

Naruto glared, "I'll show you manners…" He said taking a threatening step forward.

"Naruto calm down!" I said alarmed when Tobi moved to confront him. I didn't want this situation to escalate. I knew Naruto was angry on my behalf for the things in my memories but right now my father and his demon weren't doing anything and if I could keep it that way and get them out of here quickly, all the better. My father didn't seem to be in any rush to leave however. He ignored both demon's angry posturing and walked further into the living room. Now that his back was turned I limped forward a little wondering at what he was carrying.

Fugaku placed his black brief case on the coffee table and turned to look at me holding a strange tall object. It was wrapped in a protective travel cloth the way you might wrap a sword only this was thinner and longer, like a staff. "I'm sure you're wondering why I've come back so soon. While in Boston, the Tokyo Police Department sent me this." He pulled a folded piece of paper from an inside pocket of his suit jacket and offered it to me. I was still several feet away and showed a split second's hesitation at the distance. I didn't want to draw attention to my ankle or get any closer to my father but they both seemed inevitable. Naruto preempted me by walking forward and snatching the proffered piece of paper away from him before coming back and handing it to me.

Fugaku frowned first at him, then at me finally noticing the bandage on my ankle. "Somehow I thought the nine tails would be a better guardian than that." He muttered disapprovingly. I ignored him and opened the letter. My heart sank. Reading the first line: 'We regret to inform you…' I knew what the rest of it would say. "Your uncle always said he'd outlive me because he was a year younger, a pity for him he was wrong." My father's lack of compassion was not surprising. He seemed completely unaffected but I on the other hand was devastated. I'd never met my uncle in person but we talked a lot over the phone when I was younger - before my father found out about it and put an end to it. Even from a distance, my uncle had been more a father to me than my real father. I took a moment to breathe, I would have to mourn my uncle later – I couldn't afford to show my father any weakness now.

Naruto gave Fugaku a glare and came to stand next to me. He turned his back to the other two so they wouldn't see and gave me a sympathetic look; silently giving me his support without them knowing. Probably in an effort to deflect away from the suspiciousness of the gesture he asked me a question he'd probably already figured out the answer to, "Ne Sasuke, why does your uncle's age matter?"

"Go on, Sasuke." My father said suddenly, Naruto turned around quickly when he spoke. "I want to make sure your demon understands how important this is." He was smirking at Naruto all of a sudden and it was only feeding my anxiety. I wasn't used to this side of him, the cold calm exterior, the way his gaze raked over Naruto calculatingly… even covetously. I didn't know what to make of it but I knew it meant trouble.

"The curse… you know that the intensity of the accidents increase with time…" I started, glancing at Naruto out of the corner of my eye and then shifting my gaze back to my father who was waiting for me to finish. "Well, if any of us manage to live that long by the time we get to thirty nine the curse gets more intense. The accidents go from external to internal, things our demons can't protect us from: disease, infections, etc. No one has ever made it to forty." I looked at my father then with a dawning realization.

He smirked confidently and nodded, "I'll be forty in two months. Your Uncle thought he'd outlive me and take the family business from me. Well now he's dead and since the fool had no children it makes us the last of the Uchiha bloodline."

His lack of compassion, unsurprising though it was, still burned me. I glared at him but quickly turned my gaze away out of habit. In the past even the wrong look had been enough to drive him into a rage which he wouldn't hesitate to take out on me. I knew with Naruto here he couldn't touch me but the fact that he was so relaxed and so in control of himself was unnerving by virtue of its unfamiliarity; especially with the revelation that he essentially had less than two months to live. He should be on edge, frightened, unhinged, but instead he was calm and confident.

'He knows something I don't.' I thought glancing back at the letter in my hand. I was about to fold it back up when I saw the date on the edge of the paper that denoted when it had been printed. "You got this at the beginning of the week..." There was a sudden crash of thunder outside and I looked out through the wall of windows with a small confused frown. I knew for a fact it wasn't supposed to rain tonight but I could see rain clouds gathering in the sky, blocking out the last rays of sunset.

"I received the email the day I arrived in Boston. I stayed only long enough to exchange a few pleasantries and left your mother behind to put the finishing touches on our… business deal."

My grip tightened on the piece of paper in my hand. I didn't care if he was my father, I was tired of playing games. "You and I both know mom doesn't help you with the business. If she's involved then it either has to do with your social circle or me."

The smirk on my fathers face gave me chills. "I'm glad you're not as dumb as I thought you were. No, it wasn't an _official_ business transaction and yes it had everything to do with you." He handed the staff to Tobi, who took with a gloved hand, and started walking around the living room. Tobi held the thing away from his own body but stayed next to the couch, watching us. "You see, you're my contingency plan Sasuke. If I really die before forty I need to make sure you're at least married. Itachi would've already been having children by now but unfortunately I can only hope for the start of a pregnancy if that."

I felt the blood drain from my face so fast that I was lightheaded. Naruto reached out and grabbed my arm, the look on his face both concerned and possessive but when it shifted back to my father it was downright dangerous. Fugaku stopped in front of the windows and peered into the darkness beyond, "The flight to Boston was an unfortunate but necessary risk. No matter how hard your mother tried she couldn't arrange an omiai with any respectable Japanese families. Your brother's death was apparently the final straw. Even in this age people are still very superstitious and there's no longer a way to realistically hide the fact that Uchiha men tend to die young. It was clear if we were going to find you a fiancée we were going to have to look abroad."

He started walking again, making his way back to us but I wasn't paying attention. There was no way… no way was I going to get married to someone I didn't even know, someone who wasn't… Naruto slid his hand down my arm and gripped my hand for a moment before he let go and took a small step away as if readying himself for a fight. He was still watching Tobi and I wondered briefly if there was something happening between them that I couldn't perceive. "We found a respectable, well-to-do Japanese American family to tie to our name and if all goes well you'll be married by this time next month."

"No." The lights went out for two seconds, simultaneous with a flash outside and almost immediately thunder crashed with a deafening roar. The storm was right above us. The look on my father's face after I refused was bone chilling and a part of me screamed in terror of defying him; screamed that I knew what would happen to me if I did. I caught the surprised look on Naruto's face and it strengthened my resolve. "That crash of lightning was for us. You've been here too long, you should leave." 'Before something happens,' I added in my mind. I wanted him out of here, not just because he was trying to ruin my life but because I did not want a repeat of what happened the last time we were in a room together for too long… not while we were on the top floor of this apartment complex.

Fugaku walked right up to me and I struggled against the urge to take a step back. I felt Naruto's chakra pushing back against my mental barriers again, struggling to come to my defense. "First you defy me by daring to refuse a marriage that will save our family, then you tell me to leave." He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and hauled me forward nearly right off my feet.

"Sasuke!" Naruto moved to stop him but Tobi got between us with that thing that looked like a staff and Naruto actually stepped away from it nervously.

Fugaku glanced at them quickly before he said, "That demon's been a bad influence on you, Sasuke." It was then that his gaze drifted to my neck and his face twisted into pure revulsion. He yanked the collar of my shirt down to get a better look, "A very bad influence..." He said repulsed. He pushed me back and my swollen ankle twisted beneath me. I gasped and Naruto was there in an instant to catch me before I fell. "I suspected you were a faggot Sasuke but not even I expected you would let it prevent you from fulfilling your duties as the Uchiha heir. Itachi would've never disgraced me in such a manner."

"Why don't you shut your pie hole and get the hell out!" Naruto said, hooking an arm under my knees and picking me up. I'd have been angry with him for making me feel like such a damsel in distress if it weren't for the fact that I was Freaking Out. He knew… He Knew! I raised a hand to my neck where the hickey must've been and clutched at Naruto's shirt with my free hand when he started moving. He gave the other two a wide birth and eventually put me down on the other living room sofa. This one was farther away from them and much closer to the windows. I could hear the rain pouring outside like the heavens themselves had opened up.

"I see that Sasuke not only failed to teach you manners but any sort discipline at all. Not that I'm surprised if he's been too busy taking it up the ass." His lip curled disgust.

I gripped the seat cushion as if I was holding on for dear life. "Get out." I didn't even realize I'd said it until after it was out. I shot a terrified look back to my father but he appeared to be ignoring me.

Fugaku turned to his demon and nodded. Tobi mutely began unraveling the object in his hand and I heard a sharp intake of breath from Naruto as it was revealed. "I'm sure you recognize this, Sasuke." My father began as the rings at the top of the staff chimed now that they were free. "This belonged to a Buddhist monk during the sengoku period. It's from our private collection." I remembered it. The bottom of the staff was broken into a sharp edge and Tobi raised it into view when he gripped it with both of his gloved hands.

All of a sudden Tobi ran passed my father and raised the staff over my head. I didn't even have a second to react before I heard Naruto call out my name and get between us. Tobi swung and stabbed Naruto in the stomach with the sharp end of the staff. Naruto fell back and I heard the sound of wood cracking when the force of the blow embedded the other end of the staff into the floor in front of me.

"NO!" I threw myself off the couch and onto my knees beside him. This wasn't happening… Blood was seeping from the wound in his abdomen and Naruto gritted his teeth, holding back a scream as he reached out for the staff. But his hands kept stopping an inch before touching it as if he simply _couldn't_. In that same moment I felt a wash of anger and Naruto's chakra barreled through my mental defenses.

Naruto's red aura churned in absolute agony but even as it roiled in angry waves, it parted around the staff and I knew that was the reason he was bleeding. So I reached out, grabbed the staff and cried out when it burned my hands. I pulled them away in shock and Naruto grabbed my wrist. "Run." He said with a gasp. Even with the agony I knew he was in he was still worrying about me.

I shook his hand off me, grabbed the staff again and heaved. I'd be damned and go to hell before I ran like a coward and left him behind! "It's not going to kill him." My father said off hand. He had walked back to the coffee table while I was struggling with the staff. "Naruto, as it turns out, is unique among all the demons our family has collected. Stories have been told in our family for generations about the nine tails' incredible strength, resilience, and raw power. How the one who would finally summon him was destined to end the curse that was killing us. Unfortunately, there seems to have been some kind of mistake."

I watched them out of the corner of my eye while I kept trying to remove the staff from Naruto's middle. Tobi wasn't moving at all, simply standing a few feet away awaiting his next orders. Fugaku sat in front of the table and opened his brief case. "I've dedicated my entire life to figuring out how to lift this curse and I know that I'm almost there but two months is not long enough. I need to live longer." My eyes widened when he stood up with the spell book in his hand. "Itachi understood that and submitted himself to this experiment willingly. You see, I can't summon two demons from the tablets with the same spell, it wasn't created for that and the backwash of power could be fatal but… I consulted with a Shinto priest and learned how I could take the demon from someone who'd already summoned one."

I pulled my hands away with a frustrated yell. The skin was an angry red and blisters were starting to form on my palms. I didn't care. My heart was racing. He was planning on taking Naruto away from me. "Fuck no!" Naruto screamed. He was struggling not to squirm through the pain even as he shot a glare at my father. "I'll NEVER obey you!"

My father smirked, "Very soon you won't have a choice. I will teach you to give me the respect I deserve and you will help me live long enough to break the curse. It's plain to me that the old stories got it wrong, it's not who summons you who will break the curse, but rather whoever possesses you."

"Wait a minute, you said Itachi did this willingly?" I asked with a sudden sinking suspicion. "Why? He didn't have Naruto and taking his demon guardian away would be as good as…"

"He was not supposed to die!" My father snapped, his face morphing into the angry mask I was more familiar with.

Oh my god… "You killed him." I was frozen in shock. "You said Itachi died in car accident… You even tried blaming me for it!"

"Itachi wasn't just coming to pick you up that day, he was rushing back to the manor to summon a new demon." Fugaku was flipping through the spell book with an annoyed air about him. Like the death of his first born was an inconvenience he was trying to brush off. "I had attempted to remove Kisame from him but something went wrong and the demon died half way through the extraction. We were riding in separate cars from my office to avoid instigating any accidents but alas…" he shrugged and finally appeared to find the desired page.

"Alas…" I repeated under my breath. That's all the death of my brother was to him. Perhaps frustrating because he was the perfect heir but 'alas', unfortunate.

"My motives were different back then. At the time I thought merely having another demon protector would be enough to elongate my life. Now I know that it has to be him." He finished looking at Naruto with that same covetous glance from earlier… that same glance I now remembered from when I'd first summoned him.

I was more angry in that moment than I had ever been in my entire life. I grabbed the staff and pulled as hard as I could. Naruto cried out in pain but his cry was cut short when he coughed suddenly, blood spilling from his mouth. I froze, "Naruto?" I asked, terrified that I'd made the damage worse.

Naruto gasped, coughed again and spat the remaining blood in his mouth onto the hardwood floor. "M'ok." He said quickly.

"Sasuke, step away from the kyuubi." Fugaku said, voice calm once again. "If it console's you, then know that this shouldn't kill him." He continued mockingly. "I discovered what went wrong the last time and all you'll have to do is return to the manor to summon another demon when we're through. I have the jet on stand-by, you'll get your new demon, get on the plane and be in Boston tomorrow in time to meet your new fiancée."

My blistering hands stung but I kept pulling without turning to look at my father. "Over my dead body."

Naruto's eyes widened but I gave him a subtle shake of my head. I was not going to let this happen. I was not going to run and I was not going to let my father take him from me. I was _tired_ of being afraid.

"I'd rather not lose my last heir unless it absolutely comes to that so how about over your new friend's dead body instead." My head snapped up and my eyes widened. It was the wrong thing to do. "What in hell has happened to your eyes, Sasuke?" He said in a shocked and dangerous tone.

It was the first time since my enhanced senses returned that I'd looked at him dead in the face but right then I didn't care if he knew. "How the heck do you know about Lee?!" I demanded and then in the next second it hit me. In front of Gaara, in front of that snake and now in front of Tobi. The protectiveness of Naruto's chakra while it pushed against my mental barriers. It was defensive against any demon that wasn't Naruto and the fact that it hadn't left me during my walk through Tokyo and even in the lobby… "You've been following me." I said, the realization dawning.

Tobi turned his head to the side, looking at me curiously but Fugaku completely ignored what I'd said and once again demanded, "Why are your eyes red, Sasuke?!" I hissed and had to pull my hands away from the staff again. They were trembling slightly and they stung like crazy… but all I had to do was look at Naruto to ignore my own pain and keep at it. Naruto was tiring. He wasn't squirming as much anymore and a small pool of blood had formed on the ground around him, soaking into my jeans. I didn't care what my father said, with my enhanced sight I could plainly see how the staff was killing him.

I reached for it again when suddenly there was a hand in my hair slamming my back onto the floor. "You will answer when I speak to you!" My father spat in my face. I glared at him and braced myself with my arms. Using the ground as leverage I kicked up over my head with my uninjured foot to hit my father in the face. A gloved hand reached out and grabbed my foot an inch before the kick connected.

Fugaku fell back in shock while Tobi peered into my face more closely. "He's full of demon chakra." He said without any infliction or emotion. I yanked my leg away angrily and he let me go. "The spell is affecting him differently."

"What the hell does that mean?!" Fugaku demanded, grabbing the spell book and getting to his feet.

'You read the spell wrong,' echoed in my mind just as Tobi said, "It's a different spell."

"What?!" No one had time to react. There was a flash of light and an explosion tore at the side of the building. The windows shattered inward sending broken glass and rain water all over the apartment. I ducked and covered my head just long enough for the glass to settle before I launched myself back to Naruto's side. My father screamed in rage seconds later as he got back up from where he'd been thrown. "This is your fault Sasuke! My counter spell won't work if you changed the original!"

I ignored him. "Naruto?!" He opened his eyes and looked at me in the semi darkness. That alone helped me breathe again. "We need to get out of here," I said gripping the staff again. "Before lightning strikes again!" We needed to find someplace safe and I had to warn Lee and Gaara that my father had gone crazy.

"You've ruined everything." My father said in a dark voice from halfway across the room. "You've refused to give up the demon, refused to fulfill your duties as a son of this clan, you are worthless to me now. Tobi!" I looked up the same time the other demon did. "Kill him."

"Sasuke!" Naruto cried out in a panic. His chakra surged inside me, reacting to his fear and lending me strength. I pulled again with all my might screaming as the holy staff burned the skin of my hands and with another sound of cracking wood the staff came free. Naruto screamed again and curled in on himself against the pain. His chakra immediately came together in a churning mass over the wound to begin healing it.

I fell on my back still holding the staff when Tobi flew into my field of vision with demonic speed. I could still feel the borrowed chakra coursing through my muscles, enhancing more than just my five senses, so I quickly turned the staff over my head just as he was right on top of me and thrust the sharp end of it into his heart. Tobi's hand stopped inches from my throat. He never made a sound but I could almost feel his black aura screaming. I watched it pull away from the staff the way Naruto's had; pull away from his heart. His body shuddered and I knew the wound was fatal.

My arms trembled as the enhanced strength began to leave me. There were no more demons around to threaten me so Naruto's chakra was drawing back. I pushed against the body above me and Tobi fell next to me, the staff still embedded in his heart.

"Naruto…!" He was still on his side, holding his middle. But before I could get to him my father got between us and slashed at me with a shard of glass the size of my arm. I wasn't fast enough to completely avoid it and fell against the couch bleeding from a long shallow wound on my chest. "Shit…" I cursed in shocked surprise. Fugaku screamed in incoherent rage and slashed at me again but that time I was ready. I ducked under his arm and grabbed his wrist, twisted it and forced him to drop the shard. He uttered a frustrated yell and slammed a fist into my swollen ankle. I screamed in pain and the next thing I knew his hand was back in my hair.

My head hit the floor with enough force to leave me shocked and dazed. I could feel the small glass shards digging into the side of my face as he held me there and brought another sharp object against the skin of my neck. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that if I didn't move now I was dead but it was a disconnected thought; I just couldn't focus through the pounding in my head. All of a sudden I felt a hot foul breath against the side of my face and the whisper of death in my ear. "You were always worthless, Sasuke but if I'd known you'd become such a monumental failure, I would've done this sooner."

I waited for the inevitable but it never came. Instead Fugaku screamed in agony and I felt him release me. I waited only a moment, just long enough to get off the ground without falling back down again and looked behind me. Naruto was struggling to his knees, still holding his stomach, the pain clear on his face. He was staring at my father who was yelling as he removed a large piece of broken metal from his thigh. When Naruto noticed I was back on my feet he reached out a trembling blood stained hand to me. "Sasuke, quick… I can get us out of here."

'Yes!' I moved to take his hand but just then Fugaku tackled me onto the sofa. I struggled to get away but I was still a little dazed and he was over-powering me. Then I remembered his wound so I reached out, grabbed his thigh and squeezed. "Gah!" His hold on me weakened and I scrambled up and over the couch, falling onto the floor behind it.

"Sasuke!"

Damnit, while trying to put a barrier between my father and me, I'd separated myself from Naruto. I'd barely come to realize that when my father jumped over the back of the couch right next to me. I cursed again and got to my feet too quickly. The apartment spun in my vision and I stumbled backwards on my bad ankle until my back hit something that creaked and yielded slightly against my weight. I looked behind me and my heart leapt into my throat. It was the window frame or what was left of it. Behind me on either side there was nothing but air.

I felt the wind whip through my hair and buffet against me. Fugaku grinned. He quickly blocked my escape and thrust a hand against my neck, choking me. I raised both hands to try to pry them away but I was dizzy and exhausted and he was stronger than I was. "No one to save you this time." He said just as I saw Naruto get to his feet behind the couch.

Naruto's eyes widened. "NO!" Fugaku shoved hard against my neck. The twisted metal frame I was leaning against gave way and I fell.

My stomach bottomed out as I dropped from the 22nd story of my apartment building. It wasn't two seconds later though that I saw Naruto run passed my father and jump out after me. "Are you crazy?!" I called terrified.

"Shut up and take my hand!" He was falling a few feet above me and reached out to me with his hand again. I raised my arm to take it but he was still too far away. We were falling fast but in that moment it felt like an eternity.

"I can't reach!" I yelled against the rush of the wind in my ears. I stretched and felt my fingertips brush his. There was another flash as lightning struck the top of the building again, blinding me momentarily. I heard Naruto call my name in a panic and that's when the worst pain I'd ever felt exploded at the back of my head and everything went black.

00000

Darkness.

Silence.

I was surrounded by nothing.

Was I dead? No… no, this was so unfair. This wasn't what I wanted anymore. I wanted to live…

"Sasuke!"

Suddenly I could hear a voice as if muffled through layers of cotton. I opened my eyes again and the darkness was interspersed with splashes of color; blurred images that made no sense. "Sasuke!" Sensations were beginning to come back to me slowly. It was wet, cold and there was an excruciating pain in my abdomen that made me want to gasp but my lips were forming another word instead.

"SASUKE!"

The blurred images came into slightly better focus. Someone grabbed me and shook me. "We have to get you out of here now!" There was a flash of blond hair and heals clicking against concrete as they pulled me away… away from what?

"NO! I can't! Sasuke!" I looked at the ground and there were two people bending down to pick up a prone unresponsive form. There was red everywhere. 'Blood…' a terrified thought echoed in a different voice, 'so much blood.'

It was a body.

My body…

00000

The pain was what woke me. I ached everywhere but above it all was the worst headache I'd ever felt in my life. I groaned but didn't dare move. Mercifully, the pillow beneath my head was soft and the bedding that covered me was warm. I was as comfortable as could be expected but I was also confused. Where was I? "Shh, lie still and drink this." Someone put a straw to my lips and that's when I realized how thirsty I was. The cool water went down my dry throat like ambrosia. I coughed just as the straw was taken away and had to grit my teeth against the new onslaught of pain that one act had brought. "I can give you something for the pain but it'll only take the edge off. If you need it I'll give you something stronger once you've had a bite to eat."

It was a woman speaking. I felt her hold a pill to my lips and the pain was so bad that I didn't care what it was. I let her slip it into my mouth and swallowed it with a few extra sips of water. She took the straw away again and for several minutes I just lay there and breathed until I could open my eyes. It was dark but there was a small lamp lit somewhere in the room that filled the space with a gentle glow. The woman leaning over me with a concerned expression was blonde and I stared at her a moment. Her face seemed… familiar somehow. "How are you feeling?" She asked quietly.

Something about her made me feel more at ease. I instinctively knew I could trust her so I was honest. "Like someone dropped a building on me." I managed, my voice slightly hoarse.

A smile tugged at her lips and she sat back in her chair as though relieved, "Close. You fell from the top of a twenty-two story apartment complex and landed on your head." The small smile wilted as her eyes took in the rest of my body, "The impact killed you." My eyes slowly widened in shock. "Naruto ended up using his body as a lifeboat for your soul until his chakra could repair your body enough for you to return to it." She sighed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I still don't understand how the hell he did that or why it worked. From what he told me your death should've killed him too but honestly, I don't think even he knows how he did it."

Naruto. My eyes widened. "Where is he?!"

She indicated with her chin the space behind me and I turned my head as much as I could until I caught him in my peripheral vision. Naruto was lying down next to me. "Naruto?" He didn't respond. I could see his chest rise and fall as he breathed and that immediately put me more at ease but… "What's wrong with him?" I made to raise my hand to touch him but it felt heavier than I expected and I looked down. My hand was lying above the covers and was already gripping his. Bandages had been wrapped around them to keep them together. Seeing those bandages made me become aware of several things at once.

My entire body felt like it'd been shoved through a meat grinder. The hand that was holding Naruto's didn't hurt at all but I could feel the stinging pain in my other hand like the skin was raw under the bandages. I could feel all the little cuts and bruises that covered my arms and face, right down to the big one on my chest. The bandage around my head was tight and itchy, my ankle still felt the way it had when I'd first been bitten but the leg above it hurt a lot more, probably from the fall. All this information about my own injuries came to me in a split second but the one thing that disturbed me the most was what I saw on Naruto's abdomen. It was wrapped in bandages and I could see where blood had seeped through them. Naruto could heal injuries in the blink of an eye. To see him in bandages carried such a deep sense of wrongness to it that I turned my head back to the blonde woman.

"He's… sleeping." She began and the sincerely worried expression on her face stopped me from whatever I'd been about to say. "It's like I said, he's healing your body. You were dead for a good five minutes and even after he got your heart beating again… you were in very bad shape." The way in which she said it made it clear that was an understatement. "He wouldn't be separated from you, wouldn't accept that you had died. It was the amount of chakra he was expending that finally caused him to slip into unconsciousness. He was… is essentially using his own life force to support two people, one who was almost mortally wounded and another who should for all intents and purposes be dead." Her gaze moved to our joined hands. "Knowing that touch made your connection stronger, he tied your hands together before he passed out."

"Is that why he isn't healed yet, because he's using all his energy to heal me?" She hesitated a moment at my question, then nodded. "I was there when he was stabbed." I said with a deep sense of guilt. "I know how bad that injury is. He needs all his strength. Why haven't you untied us yet?"

Her gaze drifted to Naruto with quiet concern laced with affection. "Because you could still regress and if you die, he dies."

I shook my head slightly and grit my teeth against the renewed pounding at the back of my skull. My head felt like it was splitting in two. "Untie me. I'm fine now, the curse won't…"

"I'm not talking about your curse!" She hissed drawing her gaze back to me sharply. I blinked in surprise and fell silent under that sharp stare. "Don't you think I know exactly how bad his injury is?! Neither one of you are 'fine'. I would love to untie you and put you both in a hospital but that's not possible right now." She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair, messing up her pigtails. "He cares more about your life than he does about his, that's why it would kill him. He made me promise not to untie you and swore in exchange that he wouldn't die. So I'm holding him to that… he's never lied to me before."

I looked at her curiously and after a moment said, "You… know Naruto?"

"Oh I'm sorry, I never introduced myself. My name's Tsunade." At the lack of recognition on my face she frowned slightly, "Didn't Naruto tell you he was looking for me?"

"Naruto didn't want his boyfriend to know because he was afraid he might misunderstand." A new voice said behind her. I shifted my gaze to look over Tsunade's shoulder just as Gaara came into view. If there was any lingering anxiety left in me it was gone in that moment. He nodded to her respectfully but kept a polite yet notable distance. I felt a flash of my enhanced senses as Gaara stood there but they receded just as quickly once they recognized he was not a threat.

Tsunade sighed and stood up, smoothed out her pantsuit and gave me another look. "I'll go find you something to eat." She said, just as my stomach rumbled. I nodded to her gratefully but wondered as she walked away if I would have the energy to eat. I was hungry but so exhausted I could sleep for a week.

Gaara took her seat after she left. "Who is she?" I asked remembering the familiarity with which she'd spoken of Naruto.

"She's the priestess who raised Naruto. You could call her his mother." My eyes widened. "Naruto and I brought her up to speed with what's been going on. She's been helping us hide you." Wonderful, I'd made a complete ass of myself to Naruto's mother. Wait a minute.

"Hide me? What … what's going on? What happened?"

Gaara regarded me curiously, "What do you remember?"

"I… remember the fight with my father… I remember him attacking us and…" I trailed off and closed my eyes for a moment. Thinking hurt.

"Tsunade said it was possible you might not remember everything with the blow to your head. We would've taken you to a hospital if your father didn't have so many doctors in his pocket but Naruto said he could heal you better if we left it up to him so we did. You can relax, we're safe for now." I opened my eyes again and looked at him. 'For now'? He saw the question on my face. "When we were at the dojo, Naruto gave me his necklace so that I could help him find Tsunade." A mound of sand rose up from the ground next to him and the end of it formed itself into a closed fist. It opened up and the necklace tumbled out, dangling between its fingers. "What we didn't know was she was using it to find him. Late that evening she showed up at the dojo looking for Naruto. It turns out that the necklace is also warded because it's a protection charm so she was … annoyed that I had it and eager to get it back to him.

"Lee and I … accepted her request to show her where you lived." I raised an eyebrow when I realized Gaara paused every time he was downplaying Tsunade's reactions. "When she was pulling up to the building we saw both of you fall from the window. Naruto survived the fall, you didn't." Gaara was speaking in the same familiar monotone as always but I noticed how tense he was and how his hands clenched and unclenched. His body language betrayed his cool exterior and I wasn't sure how to react to it. So I pretended not to notice and let him continue.

"Naruto wouldn't move until he got your heart beating again. Then we got you both into the car and got out of there. We were going to go back to the dojo but Naruto told us your father knew about us, had threatened to kill Lee and the dojo was the first place he'd look. So we snuck into Tsunade's hotel room and hid there for the rest of the day until Tsunade could book us on an overnight train to Hokkaido. That's where we are now." I blinked, it was the most I'd ever heard him say all at once and I was immediately struck by how bizarre it was that I was more surprised by that than by the things he'd actually said.

I sighed quietly and decided I was too tired to react too strongly. At this point I was a little overwhelmed and just didn't have the energy to do anything but nod and agree, no matter how odd the story. I'd freak out about… almost dying later. "Why Hokkaido?" I asked with eyes half lidded. I was exhausted and the pain killer was making me groggy. I wasn't going to last much longer but I was curious.

"There's an onsen attached to a Shinto temple to Inari in Hokkaido where Tsunade says we'll be safe. You got more problems than just your father, Sasuke." He said, his eyes drifting to my ankle.

I shook my head. I'd deal with that later. "Lee?"

Gaara's gaze went from my ankle to a corner across the room I couldn't see. "Sleeping." I saw the protectiveness in that gaze and gripped Naruto's hand tighter reflexively. I was suddenly sorry that I'd gotten them involved. Gaara brought his gaze back to me, "Lee's on board with whatever you need." He saw me start to shake my head and cut me off before I could say anything. "I agree with him."

I blinked in shock. I'd expected Gaara to be pissed at me for putting his lover in danger but his next words would force me to reevaluate my opinion of him yet again. "You and Naruto are friends, and we have precious few of those. Lee and I agreed that if we did nothing while you needed help then we didn't deserve the bond we had with you." Gaara looked me right in the eyes, "Bonds like these are what make life worth living, they define us and it's up to us to protect them with everything we are. That's what Lee and Naruto taught me. I cherish my bond with Naruto and I will always be there for him if he needs me.

"The one you've made with Lee is similar and he's eager to prove himself a good friend to you." He paused contemplatively, "Lee's never had this before. For that alone I owe you my gratitude." Gaara stood up and the hand of sand dropped the necklace onto my left palm. "Give this back to Naruto when he wakes up. I don't like holding onto it." I tried to curl my fingers around it but couldn't close my hand.

"Hey wait, can you untie my hand from Naruto's before you go?" I asked hoping he would help me before Tsunade came back.

Gaara stared at our joined hands and actually gave me a mildly incredulous look. "If you can't do it yourself, you're not ready to let go of him." I frowned and attempted to lift my left hand. It trembled and the necklace slipped from it and onto the bed but I was only able to lift it a couple inches before I let it fall back. My whole arm ached just from that. "You fell off the top of a building, Sasuke." He reminded me what I thought was unnecessarily. "Get some rest."

I sighed in mild frustration and closed my eyes, taking his advice. I hoped Tsunade wouldn't wake me to eat anything. I was too tired to care about being hungry, too tired to care about anything except perhaps the hand I was holding above the bed sheets. I was worried about him but tried to console myself with the thought that no one else was panicking. Naruto would be ok, and as long as that held true, then so would I.

00000

I'm trying to stay away from Japanese in this fic but:

1) Omiai: This is a meeting arranged by a go-between where parents from two different families bring their heirs to meet for the first time to see whether a marriage can be arranged. This is still practiced today. (A reviewer brought to light a misunderstanding I want to clear up: I'm not tyring to imply that omiai's are forced arranged marriages. The way it was handled in this fic: as though it were a 'business transaction' as though Sasuke didn't have a choice, is merely to emphasize what a horrible person Fugaku is.)  
2) Onsen: hot spring.

AN mini: The last scene was kind of an apology. My boyfriend told me to leave it on a cliffhanger but I just couldn't do that to you guys after waiting so long for this update. Please let me know if you guys like it! Reviews are a great motivator to help me keep writing. Thanks!


	6. Happiness, In Peril

AN: So it seems I am not dead… I'm sorry, I meant for this to be out by the end of last year, thanks to some kind words from a friendly reviewer who reinvigorated me, but it didn't work out. For that apologize, to them and to everyone who waited. Life continues to give me unpredictable opportunities to write but I promise this will be completed.

Any errors you may find hence forth are my own as I was not able to have this update beta read. This update is actually about half of an incomplete chapter that was kicking my behind with its length so the second half will be chapter 6. Oh and there were a couple scenes that had to be written but that Sasuke couldn't tell himself so I apologize if the switches to third person are jarring. Please let me know what you think.

Heads Up: All Warnings and Triggers remain.

Happiness, by Accident  
By: Lotus-chan  
Ch05: Happiness, In Peril

The rain poured down the side of the building, falling in heavy sheets. The building's glass exterior reflected the lightning as it arched through the clouds threateningly; as if the heavens felt cheated of their chance at him and waited for the opportunity to strike again. Fugaku's scream echoed through the scorched penthouse apartment as he clutched the overturned sofa that held him pinned to the ground. The pain in his side was excruciating and he cried out a second time, cursing the gods and his traitorous son for taking his demon slave away from him.

He struggled to move the sofa enough to slip out from under it but every miniscule movement caused a mountain of pain and sapped more of his strength. After several minutes he heard the sound of the front door opening, "Help! I'm over here!" he called desperately. The sound of approaching footsteps was calm and leisurely as whatever person or persons made their way over to him. It wasn't long before Fugaku was looking up at a familiar face framed by platinum hair. That face that stared down at him through a pair of round glasses was silent and un-amused. Fugaku's eyes widened and his blood ran cold.

"Didn't I warn you not to come up here?" said a chilling voice behind him. Fugaku craned his neck and eventually caught the other man in his peripheral vision. The man who spoke was tall, unnaturally pale and had long dark hair which only further accentuated the bloodless quality of his skin. "Didn't I tell you that you weren't adequately prepared?" Something about the look in his snake-like eyes was mocking as he blinked down at him. The small half-smile on his face widened when those strange eyes caught sight of the small pool of blood forming around the Uchiha elder.

"I couldn't wait! I'm running out of time!" Fugaku cried out in pain and frustration.

Orochimaru licked his lips, staring at the blood as if it were a temptation. "Yes, you are."

Kabuto grinned.

Fugaku took a few seconds to breathe as wave after wave of pain assaulted him. "You've helped me before. You must be here because you're willing to help me again."

Just then Fugaku watched as a small snake materialized out of nothing at Orochimaru's feet. It coiled up his body until it was resting on his shoulder. "_Let me eat him_." Manda demanded, speaking into his master's mind. "_Allow me back to even a quarter of my normal size and I can swallow him whole_."

Orochimaru ignored him. "You undoubtedly need my help… now more than ever." A sideways glance at Kabuto and the platinum haired demon understood. Kabuto walked up to the sofa that had the Uchiha pinned and kicked it. It didn't look like it had taken much effort but the sofa went flying clear across the room, hitting the far wall with enough force to leave a significant dent in the drywall. Fugaku gasped, the pain only barely lessened. He quickly looked down at himself, able to see the wound for the first time. It was saturated in blood but the piece of broken wood sticking up through his right side was clearly visible. He was lying in the remains of his son's wooden coffee table, still exactly where he'd been thrown after that second lightning strike hit the building.

Orochimaru kneeled down to inspect the wound. It was a significant size and although it was bleeding slowly, it had been bleeding for some time now. "This will kill you." There was no hesitation or compassion in his voice, just certainty.

Fugaku believed him, "I can't die yet, I'm so close! I know that with a little more time, I could beat the curse!"

"Could you now?" Orochimaru looked at him with an amused expression.

"With your help," Fugaku amended reluctantly. "You're the only Shinto priest left who will help me. Everyone else has turned me away." He gasped and reached down towards the wound only to hesitate before touching it, afraid to make it worse. "I've seen what you can do." He continued desperately, "I know this wound is nothing to you."

The Uchiha elder's hand brought Orochimaru's attention back to the wound and he noticed something. Sticking a finger in the space between the buttons of the man's bloody shirt, Orochimaru drew the shirt aside just enough to expose Fugaku's curse mark above his belly button. The ring of demon power that surrounded the mark and denoted protection was gone. The dark priest frowned and stood up, his snake-like eyes narrowing in disappointment. "You have nothing left to offer me. Even your demon servant is dead." The only possession the man had that Orochimaru had even remotely coveted.

"No no, anything I have is yours!" Fugaku grit his teeth and hissed against the pain. He was shivering, the warmth leaving his body with his blood through the open wound. "All of my wealth and possessions if that is what you want." Orochimaru curled his lip and glanced at Kabuto with a bored expression. The white haired demon was no more impressed than he.

Manda took that opportunity to coil around Orochimaru's neck and extend his small body in front of the priest to look him in the face. "_Let me eat him! His begging is like nails on a chalkboard!_" The snake communicated to him, bobbing its head in emphasis. When he didn't get a reply, Manda tightened his grip. "_Damn you, I tire of you ignoring me!_"

His master finally looked at him, "And I tire of your whining."

The snake hissed angrily. "_You wouldn't hear it so much if you would allow me to regain my proper size and power and let me loose on these humans who bore us so_." Manda turned and hissed threateningly at Fugaku who recoiled sharply in fear and then gasped as the movement jarred his injury. "_Pathetic. The mortals of this age are worthless and cowardly; useless products of their 'modern' pampered lifestyle supported by these blights on my land they call cities._" He turned back to Orochimaru with narrowed eyes, "_…These large monuments made of glass and steal that you've all built to pay tribute to your own bloated egos_." His voice was dripping with disgust.

Orochimaru blinked at him disinterestedly. "I suppose you're talking about mankind in general when you say that because I didn't have to build any cities to demonstrate my greatness. All I had to do was capture you." Manda hissed at him threateningly and slithered off his back so fast he nearly fell. Kabuto bent down and offered Manda his arm as the snake sought him out in an indignant huff.

The fallen priest turned his pale face back to the Uchiha bleeding to death on the floor at his feet. He was still pleading under his breath in fear and desperation. There had been a time long ago when such a sight would've pleased him but it had gotten too easy. It took less and less to reduce people to such a state. The Uchiha's, he remembered, had once been a strong and proud clan who defied and resisted him at every turn. But now… "Manda is right, you are pathetic." He turned to leave.

"Wait! What if I were to offer you what you had been denied?! What if… what if I paid the price my ancestor refused? Would you help me then?!"

Orochimaru stopped. "What is it you think you know?" He hadn't turned back around but Fugaku thought he detected a smile in the man's voice…

"I know who you are." He said, the fear obvious in his own voice. "You offer to help when no one else will and you seem to have a better understanding of my curse than even I do. You travel with demons who never leave your side and in all the time I have known you, you've not aged a day." Orochimaru turned around slowly, a dangerous serpentine smile etched on his face. Fugaku swallowed hard and tried to control himself. The shivering that wracked his body was no longer solely due to blood loss. "You're the priest who cursed my clan thousands of years ago. The one who took the secret of immortality with him and left us with death and an incomplete spell that we were forced to use as protection. It was you."

"If you believe that," Orochimaru began, kneeling down again to look at his face more closely, "then why do you ask for my help?" He tilted his head to the side curiously in a manner that was vaguely animalistic. "Why not beg me to lift the curse?"

Fugaku took in a shuddering breath. He was starting to go numb. "Because I can beat you… and I think you're curious to see if I can."

Kabuto walked over to them and kneeled down next to Orochimaru. He splayed his hand above the wound without touching it and said, "Ten minutes."

Fear all but paralyzed the injured man. "I'll give you my sons!" He blurted. Orochimaru got up suddenly and walked around the debris toward the windows. "I've lost two but once the curse is lifted I will be able to have more! My third and fourth born are yours!"

Orochimaru peered out through the floor-to-ceiling windows that the lightning had blown to bits. "Your youngest son is alive."

Fugaku blinked incredulously, "That's impossible, he fell out that window. Even with a demon guardian there's no way he could've survived."

The priest chuckled darkly, "If he and his demon were bound together the way yours had been to you then you would be right. The demon kyuubi, who normally would've been bound to his master's life force would've died with him as soon as Sasuke-kun hit the pavement. However, your son tied his life force to the kyuubi's instead… and the kyuubi survived." He glanced over to Fugaku, whose eyes were as wide as saucers. "Sasuke-kun did for himself what I did centuries ago: he's made himself immortal."

He began walking back, enjoying the look of shock on the other man's face. "Such a simple answer overlooked out of fear. Oh, but that's not to say it's completely impossible for him to die. This is an imperfect form of immortality; flawed." He bent down again and came within inches of Fugaku's face. "However that is soon to change and I would love to have Sasuke-kun around to dissect at my convenience. Does that bother you?"

Fugaku was so weak and so numb by now that he could barely feel his injury any more. "No," Was his simple coldblooded answer. Orochimaru nodded to Kabuto who wasted no time. He took hold of the piece of wood protruding from Fugaku's body and pulled it out in one singular motion.

Fugaku's shriek of pain echoed throughout the apartment. Kabuto placed the same hand from before over the wound and began to heal it while Orochimaru spoke over all the painful screaming. "I agree to your terms. The original price for my services your ancestors owed and denied to me in exchange for saving your life tonight. Kabuto will heal you and I'll loan him to you to give you a chance to uphold your end of the bargain. Then we'll see whether you're smart enough to beat me at my own game." The grin only widened on his face as he listened to the man's cries of agony. He hummed to himself absently and closed his eyes slowly as if drunk on the sound.

"Manda, come." He said, lazily extending his arm to Kabuto's shoulder. The snake seemed to glare at him nastily in response but it could not resist the command for long. After a moment it obeyed and slithered onto Orochimaru's arm until it was on his shoulder once more. The fallen priest walked away from the screaming Uchiha elder and navigated through the debris until he again stood a few feet short of the large hole on the side of the building where the window had once been.

He bent down and picked up a long glass shard the length of his forearm. There was blood on the end of it. "The boy I had you poison is still alive."

Manda gave an offended hiss. _"The quality of my poison is unparalleled. This should not be."_

"Relax," Orochimaru said, glancing at the snake. "I only meant to confirm whether he truly had completed my spell and made himself immortal." He brought the end of the shard up and wiped the blood off with his fingers. "But it seems our interference was unnecessary. Watching how the kyuubi saved his life after the fall has only made me twice as certain of it."

Manda watched enraptured as his master rubbed his bloody fingers together. If he could've salivated, he would have. Orochimaru noticed and offered his fingers to the snake who immediately flicked its tongue out to taste. "Lets make things a little challenging for Fugaku shall we? Find Sasuke-kun." He said watching as Manda practically wrapped himself around his hand in ecstasy. "Bring him to me. Take whatever measures you deem necessary."

00000

"… informed security. The rest of the train station from here to the exit has been cleared."

"Shouldn't it be you…?"

"I stand the best chance of waking him after they're separated. You need to take Sasuke and go. Now."

When I woke up again I was only vaguely aware of what was happening. I was so doped up on pain killers that I felt as though I was floating above the pain; a pain so distant it was almost nonexistent. I knew I was lying down and I thought I sensed someone leaning over me, holding my right wrist. "… a few minutes won't kill him." I heard someone say distantly. There was a cutting/tearing sound, a sound of frustration and then my sweaty hand came free from the bandages that tied it to Naruto's. My reaction was instantaneous.

My eyes flew open and I gasped as my body was suddenly assaulted with some of the worst pain I'd ever felt and I realized with only a slightly clearer head that the pain killers must've been an anticipatory precaution. I saw a flash of green before someone wrapped me in a blanket, covering my face and picked me up. "It's ok," A familiar voice said. "We just gotta get off this train without anybody seeing you."

I blinked, "Lee?" There was a pain filled fog of confusion in my head. I felt him walking briskly.

"Shh, don't say anything." He whispered. I peeked up through the edge of the blanket and noticed him watching me from underneath the hood of his jacket. "All the other passengers are gone. Tsunade-san told security that you're another high profile patient of hers and you want to avoid being seen so they're gonna help us sneak you out through a side door. Stay under the blanket and pretend to sleep until we're outta here."

Even through that confused fog, there was one thing that I wouldn't rest easy without knowing. I opened my mouth to ask but he anticipated my question, "Naruto-kun's fine, Tsunade-san's bringing him. We'll tie your hands back up once we're in the car. We really shouldn't have untied you just yet but we didn't have a choice." He stopped talking and looked up as someone came up to us and asked him a question. I pretended to sleep until Lee deflected the concerned security guard's inquiries. He eventually directed us towards the exit and I felt Lee take off again.

I wanted to ask Lee more questions but every time he went down a flight of steps, turned a corner or jostled me in any way I had to grit my teeth against the pain. The exhaustion I still felt, together with the painkillers eventually won out and I slipped back into unconsciousness gratefully and with little resistance.

00000

Lee adjusted his grip slightly and hurried through the corridors. The security guard who'd stopped him earlier was escorting them through the empty train station to avoid any more delays and Lee was grateful for it. Sasuke wasn't quite yet in good enough shape to be separated from Naruto for too long but there was no way they'd be able to get them both out of the train car still connected to each other and unconscious without arousing suspicion.

Lee adjusted his grip again to avoid Sasuke's head slipping off his shoulder. He appeared to have fallen unconscious again. 'Probably for the best,' Lee thought as they rounded a corner. At the end of hallway was a locked door. The guard swiped his badge on a panel beside the door and opened it for them. Lee thanked him quickly and rushed out into the alley where two nondescript black cars were waiting for them.

The bitingly cold wind blasted him the moment he stepped outside and realizing Sasuke was wearing nothing more than a robe and a blanket, he hurried to the first car where a tall bald man was waiting. "Rock-san I presume?" The driver asked, opening the door.

"Yes, Tsunade-san and the others should be right behind us." Lee said and bowed quickly before hopping into the backseat. He set Sasuke down on the seat behind the driver and checked his pulse as Tsunade had instructed. It was thready and fast. Lee sat back, concerned. "I don't like this…" he muttered under his breath.

The sound of a text chimed as the driver got back in the car and he pulled out his phone to check the message just as Gaara opened up the front passenger side door and got in. Lee looked up surprised when he didn't see Tsunade or Naruto outside. "Gaara? Where…"

"Rock-san…" The driver started.

"Change of plans. We need to go."

"What?"

"Now," Gaara said to the driver. He gave Gaara a curt nod, started the car and immediately took off.

"Wait wait, we can't leave without them! Tsunade and Naruto were supposed ride with Sasuke so they could look after him!"

"Naruto's not waking up." Gaara said looking around the front seat at him. "We expected him to get up and make it to the alley under his own power but Tsunade's been unable to wake him. Now that we've already been separated it's not safe for the two for you to wait out here for us while we try to figure out why Naruto's not responding." Gaara paused, looking out the rear window. The train came into the station early that morning and the sun still hadn't risen over the mountains. "While you were sleeping last night, Tsunade and I were talking about that bite Sasuke has on his ankle. We both suspect that his father may not be the only thing after him and if that's true then it's even more reason to get you both to safety as soon as possible."

"Us both?" Lee asked incredulously.

Gaara gave a subtle nod. "Even without the bite to worry about, Sasuke's father has threatened to kill both of you. Since you're both targets we can't wait. We need to keep moving." He said, his eyes falling to Lee's hand.

Lee noticed where Gaara was looking and his own gaze shifted back to Sasuke. "I understand the danger. I told you that before when we were in Tsunade's hotel room in Tokyo but… it's not me I think we should be worried about." He had his fingers on Sasuke's wrist, keeping track of his friend's rapidly weakening heart rate.

"Do you think… is Naruto okay?" Lee asked after a minute. From what he remembered, Naruto's injuries were bad but not life threatening…

"I don't know." Gaara said in a near whisper, his shoulders slumping a little.

Lee raked a nervous hand through his tidy bowl cut thinking about the condition their friends were in. It would be nice to have a little good news for a change. Distracted, he barely caught himself with a hand on Gaara's seat as the car took a sharp turn. "Sorry about that boys but Tsunade-sama's message said getting you kids up to the temple was 'life or death'." Their driver said as he sped up a road that would take them farther up the mountain.

Lee swallowed hard before he nodded to the driver unaware that the man wasn't looking at him. He turned around and his own heart rate sped up when he realized the other car wasn't even behind them. They had sped through the small Hokkaido suburb so fast he was surprised they hadn't been stopped by the cops. "Tsunade said she and Naruto would meet up with us at the temple and that Sasuke should be fine until then." Gaara said, breaking the sudden silence to reassure Lee.

Lee turned back to the raven haired boy beside him and just watched him breathe for several minutes. The pulse under his fingers wasn't improving, quite the opposite, and something made Lee reach out and shake Sasuke's shoulder. In spite of the pain he knew Sasuke would be in when he awoke, Lee felt this sudden and intense need to wake him up and know for certain that he was ok. But Sasuke didn't move. The expression on Lee's face grew more stricken, "Sasuke?" He shook him again. No response. "Gaara…" Lee said in a tense and quiet voice.

Gaara had been watching the mountain road ahead of them with some suspicion. When he turned to face the backseat again he immediately assessed the situation. "Is he breathing?"

Lee nodded tightly, his tense fingers still on Sasuke's pulse. "It's getting shallower."

The driver looked at them through the rear view mirror, "He alright?"

Lee didn't get the chance to answer. With a startled exclamation followed by several curses the driver swerved violently and threw the car into a high speed spin. The vehicle slid on the ice, coming to a sudden stop when the driver's side of the car crashed against the mountain wall with enough force to throw both Lee and Sasuke against the passenger door. With the quick thinking and speed of a true martial artist Lee grabbed Sasuke and got between him and the door before they crashed against it. Lee's left shoulder exploded in pain but before his head could collide with the glass he felt the familiar grainy sensation of Gaara's sand as it cushioned his head against the blow.

Moments later Lee opened his eyes to complete and total darkness. He grit his teeth against the pain when he tried to move his shoulder. "Gaara?!"

He heard something shift to his left and the ceiling light came on. Gaara was kneeling between the two front seats; one hand on the driver's chest, the other was over the light switch above them. Sand hissed as it continued to slide out from underneath Gaara's clothes. It covered most of the interior of the car, including all the windows. Lee had known Gaara his entire life and was still shocked by the amount of sand in the car with them, especially since he was sure the sand demon had left his guitar case behind. "The driver's out cold but alive." Gaara turned to look at them after he'd inspected the other man. "You?" he asked with thinly veiled concern.

"I'm ok. Nothing I can't deal with." There was a sudden crash against the roof of the car. The lights flickered and the metal groaned as if a great weight had settled above them. Lee looked at Gaara in shock when without warning a second and third crash against the ceiling caused the metal to give an ear piercing shriek. Lee instinctively turned himself and Sasuke away when the windows on all sides shattered as the metal frame of the car was warped against whatever had settled above them. The sand caught most of the glass and with a low growl Gaara hurled it outward at whatever was attacking them.

The loud angry hiss of an injured animal sounded in response to his attack. Gaara quickly gathered up all his sand before Lee could ask him any more questions and jumped through one of the broken windows to press his counterattack. Immediately the earth beneath them shook causing Lee to slip and fall into the foot space between the front seat and the back seats just as another crash against the top of the car caused the roof to cave in almost completely. "Lee!" Gaara's voice from outside was frantic.

"I'm fine!" Lee called back but quickly took stock of the situation. They were being attacked by something _big_ and whatever it was wanted them dead. That last blow had flattened the back portion of the roof below the level of the headrests leaving him with barely enough room to move about. Sitting up as much as he could in the tight space, he moved to check on Sasuke.

Sasuke had fallen onto the seats earlier when Lee shielded him from the small amount of glass that had gotten through Gaara's sand and he was unharmed by the cave in. Lee however was more concerned by the fact that none of the commotion had woken him. Sasuke was struggling to breathe and Lee had to take his pulse from his neck because he couldn't even find it in his wrist anymore. His heartbeat was dangerously weak and Lee realized in that moment that if they didn't reunite Sasuke with Naruto soon, he was going to die; again. 'If he dies now, Naruto won't be around to bring him back…' he thought, a cold tendril of fear working its way into his chest.

Lee shook his head and took a deep calming breath, pushing the panicked thought from his mind. 'I can't help that right now, I need to focus on what I _can_ do.' He looked through the space between the two front seats and realized his best chance for getting them all out of there was the now narrow opening where the front windshield had once been. Turning back to his friend, Lee grabbed onto Sasuke with his good arm and tried to gain some leverage by placing the other on the front seat behind him. With his injured shoulder screaming he struggled to drag his friend's dead weight through the tight space between the seats.

The earth trembled again as though a giant had taken an angry fist and pounded it against the ground. Lee slipped when the tremor hit the car and hissed when he cut his hand on a piece of broken glass. Knocking the glass shard aside, he ignored the wound and the intense pain in his shoulder as he pulled them both onto the front seat. There wasn't much more space in front but as soon as he had Sasuke settled against the seat he ran a critical eye over their driver. His head had fallen forward against the wheel at some point and that was the only reason he was still alive. The roof was nearly flush with the back of his neck.

Aside from the man's head wound he didn't appear to be otherwise injured so Lee reached over and shook him. "Hey, are you alright?" Lee swallowed back the absurdity of that automatic question but perked up when the driver groaned.

He hissed when he tried to lift his head and hit it against the ceiling of the car. "What the..?" He turned his head and noticed them, "Are you two alright? What happened?"

Lee breathed a sigh of relief to see the man conscious. "We're being attacked by something and it's smashing up the car. Gaara's outside fighting it but we need to get out of here. Can you move?"

The man grunted as he slid out from behind the wheel where he'd been nearly pinned, "Yeah." As soon as he pulled himself over the gearshift and was free of the driver's seat he gave Sasuke a quick once-over, "You need help with him?"

There was a short hesitation. "Yeah..." Lee said reluctantly with a small worried smile. A part of him was starting to secretly admit that he may have damaged his shoulder worse than he thought. "I can lift him if you can pull." The driver nodded and shimmied up over the dashboard feet first, kicking aside shards of glass as he went. Lee grabbed Sasuke around the waist with his good arm and hefted him up against the dash where the driver reached under his arms to pull him out. They had him halfway out when all of a sudden something hit the car with enough force to knock it forward several feet. Lee yelped as he was thrown against the scattered glass still covering the dashboard, cutting up his forearms. Both Sasuke and the driver were flung forward, tumbling off the hood of the car and disappeared from sight.

Lee sat back and breathed harshly through his nose as he pulled an especially large piece of glass out of his left forearm. Releasing a tense breath, he tossed it aside and looked out through what was left of the front windshield only to gasp for an entirely different reason. It was a giant snake. But even the word 'giant' seemed inadequate to describe the sheer size and ferocity of the creature Gaara was fighting. It hissed and struck at Gaara with amazing speed who dodged and attacked with the long sand-arms of a giant beast not yet fully formed.

'Sand,' Lee realized as he quickly pulled himself over the dash and onto the hood of the car to look at the ground around him. While he was still in the car Gaara had broken up the asphalt on this stretch of road and removed enough moisture from the ground to create the sand he would need to fight the monster attacking them. The entire length of the mountain wall they had crashed against was sand.

He looked up and around beyond the sand and noticed the ground was covered with frost. Snow flurries were falling from the sky, the sun was only just beginning to lighten the horizon… and Gaara had still been able to make sand. Lee was startled out of his shock when the snake noticed him and lunged for him. Gaara grabbed it underneath the head forced it to the ground where it crashed onto the road near the ledge, taking out the flimsy metal guard rail that separated the road from a sheer drop into the valley below. "Lee! Take Sasuke and run!" Only seconds after Gaara said this, the snake's tail whipped and hit the car again as it struggled to scrape Gaara off its back. The force of the blow knocked Lee forward and sent him rolling off the hood of the car.

Lee gasped when he hit the ground on his injured shoulder and grasped at the dirt beneath him with a trembling hand as he struggled to get his weight off the injury. Rolling onto his back he took deep painful breaths for several seconds, not even noticing the tears slipping down the side of his face when another tremor shook the earth. The dry earth beneath him gave and shifted reassuringly for several seconds until he finally opened his eyes, looked up and spotted Sasuke and their driver.

Lee breathed a short internal sigh of relief but frowned curiously when he noticed the man doing something strange. He was pulling out a length of Buddhist prayer beads from inside his shirt and wrapping them around Sasuke's ankle. The man looked up and noticed him for the first time, "Lee-san your friend is right, take the boy and run. This will make him invisible to the snake. I'll stay and try to help." In that moment Lee realized just how well prepared Tsunade had been and that this man was no ordinary chauffer.

Any relief he felt however was short lived because in that moment the giant snake that had attacked them tumbled and writhed against the mountain wall, trying to get away from the sand that was strangling it. Its struggles sent several shock waves through the earth and an ominous rushing sound made Lee look up to see a landslide heading their way.

For the first time in his life Lee felt the intense need to curse. Knowing that there was no time to argue and that he had to move fast, he shoved his pain to the back of his mind and shot to his feet. He quickly took Sasuke from the other man, threw him over his good shoulder and ran as fast as he could back down the mountain. Despite the fact that he was injured, burdened, and in a great deal of pain, Lee's incredible speed quickly had him far from the fight.

Lee slowed down and eventually stopped when he could no longer hear the sounds of the battle. He turned around slowly, guilt working its way into his heart like a slow acting poison. 'I left them behind…' The thought had the presence of a ten ton weight on his chest but he couldn't even verbalize it properly to self-flagellate the way he wanted to. He was panting slightly, not from the run but from the pain of his aggravated injury which was starting to dislike the weight he'd placed on the opposite shoulder.

Lee's eyes widened as he realized he hadn't checked on Sasuke in some time. Quickly, he kneeled down and laid Sasuke onto the frozen asphalt as carefully as he could. He placed his fingers over Sasuke's carotid and a small thrill of panic shot through him when he felt nothing. "No no no…" Lee moved his fingers to check again and bent down over his nose to see if Sasuke was breathing. Nothing. Lee sat up as though he'd been struck by lightning and held his breath for a tense half second. Looking down at his friend in that moment all he could think was, 'not again…'

Flashes of the scene he'd encountered when they found Naruto and Sasuke at the foot of the apartment building after their fall nearly made him sick and he flew into action. Placing both hands over Sasuke's chest he began compressions and had to hold back a scream as his shoulder protested angrily against the strain. Lee counted the chest compressions aloud when all the while in the back of his mind all he could think was, 'Not again. Please not again…'

He was at it less than a minute when a black car came racing around the bend. Upon spotting them the car hit the breaks, its tires screeching and sliding on the ice as it came to a stop only a few feet in front of them. Lee recognized that car. "TSUNADE!" He shouted in a panic and quickly bent down to breathe for Sasuke. He didn't even spare the car another look as he started the compressions again and watched Sasuke's pale, unresponsive face while his mantra of 'not again' and the flashbacks to the other night fueled his rising sense of panic.

It was the first time in his life he'd ever truly panicked.

In spite of that panic, Lee was so focused on what he was doing for Sasuke that he barely registered the sound of a car door being thrown open. A few rushed footsteps and Tsunade had Naruto's unconscious form on the ground beside them. Without missing a beat, Tsunade grabbed both their hands and brought them together. Seeing that, Lee drew his terrified gaze to the priestess who was pulling out a roll of bandages. "Keep doing what you're doing," she said to him as she tied Sasuke and Naruto's hands together.

Lee turned back to his raven haired friend and did as she asked for a few more seconds but when he bent down to breathe for Sasuke again he felt a small puff of air against his cheek and stopped. Quickly, he brought a trembling hand back to Sasuke's neck and felt it: the weak but steady beat of his pulse. Overwhelmed with relief, Lee fell back onto his behind hard and realized his whole body was shaking; the cold and pain and fear taking its toll.

Tsunade checked Sasuke over herself and smiled at Lee, "Good job, you may very well have saved his life."

Lee shook his head absently, needing a moment to compose himself. The distant echo of a crash met their ears and Lee realized what he'd forgotten. "Gaara…" he whispered, realizing that his friend, his lover, was probably still up there fighting that strange creature alone. "I left…"

He made to stand up but Tsunade placed a hand on his knee to still him. It took him a moment to realize the intense glare on her face was not meant for him. "See if you can help get Naruto and Sasuke into the car." She said as her chauffeur came walking up to them. She turned that look that could melt glaciers up the road in the direction he had come, "I'll take care of the rest." As she started making her way up the road on foot Lee felt himself torn between two emotions. Fear for her because she was walking straight into a fight between two very powerful demons, and a strange fear _of_ her because the look in her eyes spoke of an angry righteous power that was about to be violently unleashed.

00000

The sun was in my eyes.

That was the first thing I noticed. Even through my closed eyelids I could sense the bright rays of the sun beating down on my face. I groaned and turned my head away before I could remember that was a Bad Idea. The renewed pounding in my head stilled me instantly. It was like the unforgiving pain of a migraine headache and I grit my teeth keeping my eyes closed. I heard movement in the room and as though someone had read my mind the lights immediately dimmed, "Sasuke?" Someone asked quietly.

I opened my eyes slowly and caught Lee in my peripheral vision. He was sitting on the ground next to my futon with a tray of something in his lap. Lee pulled his hand away from the window curtain and smiled wide. "You're awake! What a relief, we were so worried!" Lee kept his voice down considerately but his excitement was no less evident.

I took a deep breath and noticed that my chest hurt a lot less than I remembered. "Where are we?" I croaked. My mouth was dry and my lips were cracked. I looked around the room with the small amount of light that seeped in around the edge of the curtain. The room itself was spacious but Spartan. The floor was covered in tatami mats and there was a small wardrobe to one side. A wide open doorway separated the bedroom from the rest of the room and in the center of the living space beyond the doorway was a kotatsu surrounded by pillows for seating.

When my gaze came back to Lee he brought a straw to my lips and I drank the proffered water gratefully, "This is an Inari temple in the Hokkaido mountains. We got here at about noon… two days ago." I choked and coughed. It made the headache worse and I lay back with my eyes closed and breathed in and out carefully for the next few minutes. "Sorry…" Lee said, voice laden with guilt.

Whatever else he was going to say at that moment was immediately forgotten when we both heard a low groan next to me and the hand in mine twitched. I opened my eyes at the same time Naruto did and the immediate look of happiness on his face when he saw me made my heart skip a beat. Naruto's blue eyes shined through the beginnings of tears and he launched himself at me, "Sasuke!" I was helpless to do anything but lay there and endure his energetic tackle but in spite of the horrible pounding in my head I struggled to raise my free arm and embrace him back. "Sasuke, I'm so sorry! I'm so glad you're ok! I thought… I'm so glad you're ok! Don't ever leave me again!"

I breathed an internal sigh of relief to see him awake and after a minute eventually noticed Lee. He was looking at the door as though he wanted to leave and give us some privacy but at the same time he was reaching out for Naruto, a look of worry on his face. He was right, "Naruto…" I squeezed out. Naruto had finally wriggled his unbound hand around my back to hug me tighter and his weight on top of me was awakening aches and pains I hadn't yet noticed.

"Naruto-kun! Please, I know you're happy to see him awake but you're going to hurt each other!" Naruto pulled back immediately after Lee said that and looked me over but I wasn't the one who'd gotten hurt.

"You're bleeding." I said slightly alarmed when I saw the fresh blood on his bandages.

He looked down at his abdomen where his robe gaped open and frowned, sitting back on his heels. "Oh, I forgot about that."

I blinked, stunned. "You _forgot_?"

He turned his frown at me, "What? It's not like… like it hurts or anything..." he said stubbornly. His great powers of persuasion had me instantly convinced… right. Naruto 'hmpfed' at the look on my face, clearly uncomfortable with my concern and turned to Lee, "So, how long have we been out?"

Lee, who looked much more relieved now that Naruto wasn't assaulting me said, "Except for the couple of times Sasuke-kun woke up for a few minutes and the time you spent with us in Tsunade-san's hotel room, about two to three days. Which reminds me," He put the tray that'd been sitting on his lap aside, while Naruto whispered 'three days' to himself in disbelief, and grabbed the glass of water again. "Tsunade-san said to give this to Sasuke-kun when he woke up," he picked up a small folded packet of medicine, paused suddenly, and looked up.

Giving Naruto's newly reopened injury a shrewd eye, he asked, "Naruto-kun how are you feeling at the moment? Honestly."

Naruto sighed and looked at his abdomen again, "Like crap but I can deal. Why?"

"Do you think you can hold Sasuke-kun once I sit him up? Tsunade-san put something together that she wants him to take." He looked at me, "It's an antibiotic/painkiller cocktail and she wants you to eat right after so I'll go get you something once you've taken it." I nodded. I didn't even pretend like I didn't need the help. I felt like shit.

"I can get him up…" Naruto said looking at me.

"No." Lee said in a tone that brooked no argument. He was looking at Naruto and then shifted his gaze to Naruto's injury. There wasn't a lot of blood on the bandage and it appeared to have stopped bleeding but it hadn't been there when he woke up. "I'll re-bandage you once we're done with Sasuke-kun, until then please don't make your injury any worse."

Lee opened up the package of powdered medicine and poured it into the glass of water as if that was the end of the discussion. I think Naruto was just as surprised as I was. "Ne, Lee, you look kinda stressed out; everything okay?" Naruto paused and looked around the room for a moment as if finally noticing something that wasn't right, "Where's Gaara?"

A shadow crossed over Lee's face for a split second before he grabbed the straw and used it to stir the medicine into the water. He looked up and gave us a poor excuse for a smile, "Gaara's resting." Naruto raised an eyebrow. The half-assed smile faltered, "He's um, a-a little sick."

Now I raised an eyebrow. "I didn't think demons could get sick." I said somewhat sarcastically, knowing full well they couldn't.

"We don't." Naruto said entirely for Lee's benefit.

Lee swallowed hard and set the glass of water on the tray mutely. He got on his knees beside my head and reached for me but Naruto grabbed his wrist. "Lee?"

"It's a long story." Lee said quickly, averting his eyes. "I'll tell you, you need to know, but first thing's first." Naruto sighed and pulled his hand back. That's when Lee noticed our other hands were still tied together. "Um, you'll have to untie your hands briefly for this." He said nervously.

The sentiment was contagious. I had a vague memory of the last time our hands were untied and it hadn't been pleasant. Naruto bit his lip as if he understood the implications as well and nodded. "Sasuke-kun, this is going to hurt a lot." Lee said bending down and slipping an arm under my shoulders while Naruto tore at the bandages that tied our hands together. I nodded minutely; I knew and appreciated the honestly. "Once I have you up you need to drink all of the water and keep it down." Ok, I really didn't like what that implied. "Tsunade-san says the painkiller is pretty strong so it'll work fast but…"

"Just hurry up and do it!" I said anxious with anticipation. The bandages around our hands were undone but Naruto was still gripping my hand tightly, waiting for the okay from Lee. I just wanted it to be over with.

Lee took a deep breath, "Ok, keep your head straight." He nodded to Naruto who finally let me go while Lee simultaneously lifted my upper body into a sitting position.

I wanted to throw up. The pain in my head doubled without Naruto's chakra softening the blow. The room spun wildly and if there had been anything in my stomach it would've been on the futon by now. I dry heaved as it was and Naruto quickly dashed behind me to take my weight onto his chest, then slipped a hand into my yukata and touched it to my bare skin.

I could've kissed him. It only took the edge off as the aching in my head and the rest of my body had worsened with the change in position but I was grateful for even that small relief. Lee brought the straw back to my lips and I started to drink fast before Lee urged me to slow down. It was bitter and tasted awful but if it would help make the pain go away then I'd drink a gallon of it.

Once it was all down I understood what Lee had been saying before. I was extremely nauseous and was afraid for a while that the medicine would come back up. I don't know how long I just sat there and breathed in silence but eventually I came to realize that I'd closed my eyes and that Naruto was murmuring soft reassurances in my ear. I opened my eyes and noticed Lee was gone.

Naruto still had one hand on my bare chest and another hand was resting against my forehead. It was the placement of that second hand that I now silently thanked him for. For a while it felt as though the gentle pressure of his palm against my forehead, keeping my head totally still against his shoulder was the only thing preventing it from falling right off. Then the things he was whispering started to register. Things like 'I'm sorry', 'I'll make you better', 'I won't give up until you're safe' and 'I'm here for you'.

I bit my bottom lip and my eyes darted around the room. How did he say such embarrassing things so easily? It made me want to push him away, to tell him he was being ridiculous and overly sentimental. While trying to figure out how to react I half smiled at nothing in particular, "So why am I in so much worse shape than you?" I asked quietly. I was genuinely curious and trying to make light of the situation but it was the wrong thing to say.

Naruto stilled and was quiet for a long time, "Because… because you were…" He cut himself off as if he just couldn't say it.

He didn't have to because that's when I noticed my pillow out of the corner of my eye and the dark rust colored stains that covered it. How badly was I hurt that I had bled through the bandages enough to stain my bedding three days after the injury had occurred? The thought chilled me. Flashes of memory brought me back to that night, the fear, the fall, the things said to me on the train, and with a sharp intake of breath I realized why Naruto was so upset. "I died." I said, the full weight of that statement finally hitting me.

Naruto buried his face behind my ear and gripped me tightly. It was only a moment later when I felt the moisture on my neck that I blinked, alarmed. "Naruto?!"

"You were dead, Sasuke. I… I didn't know if I was going to be able to… I'm so sorry…" he said brokenly. "I thought I'd lost you. I thought… and when we fell and I saw you laying there…" he paused when his voice failed him and I felt the grip of some unknown emotion tighten inside my chest. "I said I'd never fail you again, but I did… and I almost lost you…" He was soaking the side of my neck and I felt his pain washing over me as if it were my own.

I reached up with my injured left hand and placed it heavily over the one on my chest. "You didn't fail and you're going to piss me off if you don't stop saying that." I insisted quietly. "You brought me back. I would be dead if it wasn't for you. That's not failure. All you do is save me…" 'In more ways than even you know,' I finished in my head.

Naruto shook his head, "You can't make excuses for me, Sasuke. I let you die!" He said, his breath hitching. "I don't deserve…"

"Stop it!" I said, cutting him off and gripping his hand tighter. I was terrified of the direction his thoughts were taking and I wasn't going to let his self depreciating tirade go on a moment longer.

Naruto took a deep breath against my neck and I felt him shake his head again, "You're like this because of me!"

"Exactly!" I said desperately, "I'm breathing because of you! I was already dead long before I met you! It's because of you that I'm alive and if you don't shut up about it, as soon as I get better I'm gonna kick your ass!" I didn't even think about the vulnerability I'd admitted to with those words because my heart was beating frantically. I needed him; absolutely everything would fall apart without him. He had to believe what I was telling him because it was the truth and because despite the selfish need I harbored for him since the moment I'd met him, he needed to know that he meant something to me that went far beyond filling the void of loneliness within.

Naruto was still and quiet for a long time. Then I felt his trembling lips form a small smile against the skin of my neck. "…promise?" he asked quietly. My racing heart stopped trying to hammer its way out of my chest and I sighed in quiet relief.

I turned my head to finally face him. The medication was starting to take effect and fortunately the movement caused me no additional pain. Naruto pulled back so I could look at him. His tears were still falling over his drenched face but there was a small hesitant smile there now. He had cried so much that snot dripped from his nose and he'd probably smeared it all over the side of my neck as he cried against me.

I reached up with my other hand and pulled him into a kiss.

His lips were just as chapped as mine and tasted of salt from his tears but I couldn't have asked for anything more perfect. The hand that was on my forehead moved to tilt my chin up and Naruto's tongue darted out to taste my dry lips before it plunged into my equally dry mouth. Nothing about this kiss was glamorous or sexy but it was Naruto kissing me and that meant it didn't have to be. I once again had that feeling of something clicking into place, of something filling up inside me making me feel complete. That same hand that had moved to hold my chin now fell away and slipped into my robe, his arm wrapping itself around my waist securely. The feeling of being in his arms like this was something that had no comparison and I never wanted it to end.

He pulled back and nuzzled his wet cheek against mine, an affectionate gesture that surprised me. "Love you…" he whispered against me. My eyes fell half lidded to the futon as those two words filled me with warmth. But before I could say anything Lee walked back into the room with a pink haired priestess. I made a small sound of annoyance at the interruption. Naruto chuckled quietly behind me and wiped his face against the sleeve of his yukata. My injured hand was beginning to tremble slightly so I let it fall onto my lap. He moved his own hand along the skin of my chest, bypassing the bandages to settle over my heart, which in turn brought back memories that calmed me down; no doubt the desired effect. Bastard.

The priestess who followed Lee into the room was carrying a tray with two steaming bowls and two tall glasses. Lee hesitated when he saw our faces but the girl didn't seem to notice and kneeled in front of us. She set the tray down with a smile and bowed slightly, "Hi! It's an honor to finally meet you." She said looking at me then at Naruto, then back to me again. "My name is Sakura, I'm one of the miko's at this temple." Lee eventually sat down next to her but I barely noticed because my yukata was sliding off my left shoulder and her eyes kept darting back to my bare chest. I frowned; like hell was I going to cover up just to spare her delicate sensibilities. Not when there was a price attached to nearly every movement I made. I noticed Naruto scowling too and felt vindicated.

"Um," She blushed delicately and indicated the bowls, "I brought you some soup and some water. I expect you're probably hungry and dehydrated after everything you've been through. Tsunade-sama left me in charge of your care and insisted the two of you eat something once you were up. She left specific instructions for Sasuke-kun to start with something easy to digest. I take it you're Sasuke-kun?" She asked shyly, looking at me.

I grunted an affirmative and looked down. One of the bowls was ramen and it was obvious who it was intended for, the other was a bowl of broth. My stomach rumbled. Sakura took in my bandaged hand and the way I was more or less slumped against Naruto's chest and apparently came to an annoying conclusion because she completely ignored Naruto, picked up my bowl and asked, "Um, do you think you'll need help…?" She was dipping the spoon into the bowl already and with a growing sense of unease I realized her 'delicate sensibilities' were not the issue here at all.

Naruto managed to snatch the bowl away without spilling it and said, "Nope! I've been taking care of him just fine myself until now, thanks." Lee blinked wide eyes at him and if that was so unsubtle that even Lee noticed then I didn't feel strange arching an eyebrow at Naruto. Oblivious to our reactions, he set the bowl down on my lap and raised the spoon to my lips.

At first, I just glared at it. If I was so helpless that I couldn't feed myself then I was ready to go jump off another building. But when I saw Lee suddenly struggling not to laugh I realized this was less about me being helpless and more about Naruto's need to stake his claim. That jealous streak was new and I pressed my lips together tightly to keep from smirking when I realized Naruto was entirely unaware of it.

Naruto frowned a little when I didn't take a bite and then blew on the spoon thinking it was too hot. Rather than be embarrassed I snorted slightly, a bit of disguised laughter slipping through and took the spoon into my mouth before I lost my composure completely. Naruto smiled and I took the spoon from him with my good hand, swallowing quickly. "I can do this myself, Naruto." I managed to say with a straight face and Naruto took the hint. I held the bowl in place with my weaker hand and went for another spoonful while Naruto reached for the bowl of ramen.

By the time I looked back at Sakura again she was giving Lee a questioning glance and he was nodding subtly at her. She looked back at us with a deep blush on her face after the silent exchange and I didn't have to wonder very hard about what I'd missed. "So, uh… how're you feeling?" She asked.

"Tired, achy, tired." Naruto said and I nodded in agreement, my mouth full of soup. That was an understatement.

Sakura nodded back, "I'm not surprised. We were very worried about you when you arrived. You were having a hard time keeping both yourself and Sasuke-kun alive." She said directly to Naruto.

Naruto had given up on his spoon and brought the bowl directly to his lips. At her statement however he set the bowl down, swallowed, and gave her a look like she was nuts. "What're you talking about? I have more than enough chakra to take care of us both." His arm around my waist tightened protectively and the skin beneath his fingers tingled slightly as a small burst of chakra flowed into me in response to his indignation.

Sakura looked away quickly, shifting on her knees awkwardly. "Perhaps I'm not the best person to tell this story." She said looking at Lee.

Lee on the other hand looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "M-me? I…" He looked at Naruto's inquiring face, and froze up.

"What does she mean I was having trouble keeping us alive?" He said to Lee with a slight frown.

Lee looked at Sakura, then back to us and eventually sighed in resignation. Taking a deep breath, he leveled an enigmatic look at both of us and began to explain, "Okay, um… I think… well, perhaps we all underestimated how badly you guys were injured." He paused, gearing himself up. "Sasuke-kun had already woken up once before and we took that as a good sign. Tsunade-san figured that you should be stable enough by then that if we waited until the last possible minute, separating you guys for a short time wouldn't hurt you…"

"I didn't die again did I?" I asked suddenly. I was just starting to come to terms with the fact that I'd actually been dead once. He wasn't about to tell me that it happened…

The look on Lee's face was both slightly evasive and apologetic. And okay no, I'd been joking. "I-I'm sorry… I feel partly to blame. I should've insisted…"

"Lee just tell us what happened." Naruto said. His bowl of half-eaten ramen now completely forgotten, he grabbed my healed hand and held it tightly. Normally this amount of PDA would've bothered the heck out of me; I was not the type to get all cuddly in public. But I'd just woken up three days after having fallen off the top of a building, dying, and thinking that I'd killed Naruto in the process all thanks to my psycho father who's not only the one who tried to kill me but would be disappointed to know that he'd failed. So yeah, I didn't give a shit about PDA right now and gripped his hand right back.

Lee nodded, his body language still guilty and recounted what we had missed: the events that unfolded at the train station, our separation and the ensuing chaos.

Lee looked at Naruto and said, "There was something that we didn't understand at the time. You and Tsunade-san were supposed to be right behind us when we left the station. She was sure that once you were separated and no longer suffering the strain of sustaining two people you would wake up and be able to walk out with her."

Naruto was shaking his head, "But I didn't, did I? Because it doesn't work like that. Touching Sasuke makes the connection stronger but getting separated doesn't cut the connection it just makes it weaker. You'd have to break the spell to cut our connection."

Lee nodded contemplatively, "That was Tsunade-san's theory after we finally got here. You were still sustaining Sasuke-kun but now we'd made it even harder for you because he wasn't right there next to you. She managed to get you out of the station with some help but by the time she did and realized her mistake the rest of us were long gone. I know that she took off after us as soon as she could but we already had a head start. You'd told her some of the limitations placed on you by the spell and Tsunade-san was worried about what would happen to you, being separated from Sasuke-kun for so long but she couldn't tell…" Lee trailed off inquiringly and Naruto shrugged and looked at our hands.

"Pain." He said simply, playing with my fingers. "We tested it last week. Just pain. It's supposed to be incentive to haul my ass back to my 'master' in case I try to run off or something." Sakura gave an indignant squeak on his behalf. Naruto ignored her. "It gets worse the longer I'm away, not that I felt anything that time." He said giving Lee a glance that asked him not to make a big deal out of it. "I wasn't awake for it so…" he shrugged again.

Lee nodded, understanding. He continued to tell us what happened: the car accident and the attack by that massive snake which sent chills through my system. 'More snakes…' I thought, looking at where my ankle was buried under the covers. Naruto's hold on my hand tightened at the same time and I glanced up, catching the tense look on his face before he masked it when he caught me looking. What was that all about..?

"… then Tsunade-san put your hands back together hoping that would be enough." Lee said finishing up his story, "Thankfully, it was."

Naruto nodded and asked, "So you're saying I was having trouble healing us because of the separation?"

Lee sighed and buried his face in his hands, "Tsunade-san said that was part of it but I think she thinks there's something else going on." Lee said speaking through his fingers. "We got separated for over half an hour … your weakened connection to Sasuke-kun together with the curse trying to hurt you for being away from him…"

Lee dropped his hands and there was a faraway look in his eyes, as though he were reliving that day in his mind. "You were bleeding again when we got to the temple and Sasuke-kun was barely alive."

We were all silent for several minutes, absorbing that information. That was when Naruto looked around at all of us and asked the obvious question. "Okay… so if we all made it up here then where's Gaara?"

Lee looked at Sakura imploringly and she took a deep breath bracingly, "We had to seal him."

"What?!" Naruto and I both shouted at the same time but Naruto was so angry that he'd completely drowned me out.

Sakura raised both her hands defensively and said quickly, "It was for his own protection! When all of you arrived he was the only one who couldn't cross the threshold onto temple grounds. He's a demon and unlike you Naruto he doesn't belong to the goddess of this temple!" When Naruto started to calm down a little Sakura put her hands down but Naruto was still glaring at her enough to make her swallow nervously and continue fast. "This is a temple to Inari and it took a great effort from Tsunade, probably the most powerful priestess of this or any lifetime, to get Gaara onto the grounds in the first place. It just… it wasn't long before he started to get sick."

"Why did he have to? Isn't there some other place we could've gone?" I asked.

Lee shook his head. "This temple has divine protection. After that giant snake attacked us when we got separated, Tsunade-san insisted this was the only place we'd be safe. Naruto-kun's wound wouldn't stop bleeding and your body had just suffered the trauma of dying a second time. Tsunade-san knew that just being here would help restore Naruto-kun's strength and take some of the strain off him so you could both heal. This temple is far enough away and even remote enough that it's a good place for us to hide from your father too. Gaara said that we shouldn't be separated anymore and he wanted to be around to protect all of us so he said he'd do whatever it took… even if it meant hiding out in a temple he couldn't enter." He finished the sentence with a bit if a resigned air about him and I could see the concern in his face.

On closer inspection, Lee looked awful. There were bandages around one of his hands and around both forearms peeking out from under his kimono sleeves that I hadn't noticed before. I took in his pallor, the slouching, and the bags under his eyes for the first time and mentally kicked myself for not realizing sooner how much we've put him through. "Lee, you saved our lives. Drop the honorifics." I said quietly and Naruto nodded vigorously in agreement above me. I'd had many acquaintances but never anyone I could call friend and definitely nobody who'd ever gone so far to help me. I was indebted to him. Lee looked like he was going to argue but at the looks we gave him he stopped. After a moment he quirked a small smile and nodded.

Sakura looked like she was feeling a bit awkward being there in that moment but I couldn't have given a shit. She had some explaining to do. "Well?" I asked, urging her on impatiently.

She cleared her throat nervously, "Right well, um, Gaara was getting sick…" She said, picking up where she left off. "At one point Tsunade suggested that he leave the grounds for a bit to regain some of his strength. He didn't want to but she forced him to the edge of the grounds anyway and that's when we discovered he _couldn't_ leave. Even Tsunade with all her power couldn't remove him from the temple grounds. He was trapped.

"After the first 24 hours in the temple his health was deteriorating so fast we were worried that being here was killing him. So we sealed him. The seal isn't hurting him… it's like stasis. We've been working on a spell that'll help Gaara ever since. It's actually been ready since last night but we need your help to finish it. We've been waiting for you to wake up so I guess it's fortunate that you're up so soon." She said looking at Naruto.

He blinked, "Sure, whatever you guys need."

Sakura turned to Lee, "Have you finished the beads?" Lee grabbed the small tray he'd put aside when we first woke up and showed us the contents. There were a couple pieces of wood, a carving knife with some other tools, a pile of shavings, and a dish full of small wooden beads.

"I've got one left." He said picking up a small round bead that was missing the hole through the middle.

She smiled, "Great, can you take those to Shizune so she can get things started? The sooner we get this done, the better it will be for your friend."

Lee hesitated, "I should really check their bandages before they make the walk to the temple," He glanced at me quickly, "and Naruto-k… Naruto may need my help with Sasuke."

"Oh, I could do that! I'm medically trained." She said a little too eagerly and turned back to us.

"No!" Naruto and I said simultaneously. Oh, was that rude? Guess how much we cared.

Sakura pouted for a second before she smiled politely and nodded, "Ok, I'll take the beads and we'll get everything ready. Send for me if you need help." Sakura took the tray from Lee, stood up and bowed politely to the three of us before she walked out.

"Finally," I mumbled, picking my soup back up again. It was lukewarm by now but I was still hungry.

Naruto smirked and followed suit. "So what's the plan?" he asked around a mouthful of noodles.

Lee smiled, "Shizune-san is the high priestess of this temple. She and Tsunade-san put their heads together and realized that the root of the problem was that Gaara didn't belong to the goddess so… what if we could make it so he did?"

I swallowed, "You're talking about… what? Divine adoption?"

Lee nodded with a smile, "Yep." I put my bowl down after a few more sips surprised by how little it took to fill me up. "If you're done Sasuke, I want to take a look at your head wound first."

"Sure…" I said a bit apprehensively. I was… kind of afraid of what it looked like back there. Lee caught me glancing at the old blood stains on my pillow again and his smile withered.

He was about to go for the bandages when Naruto cleared his throat pointedly. "Um, Lee? I get it that we need to help Gaara like yesterday, but if he's not in any real danger right now then maybe we should get washed up before we go anywhere." He said looking at me sideways and I realized he was doing this for my benefit. "I'll replace our bandages after we get cleaned up, okay?" He was still talking to Lee but the words were for me. I found his hand again and squeezed it.

Lee blinked in surprise but smiled, "Okay, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let you guys go anywhere if you're not in the shape for it." He reached for my bandages again and this time Naruto let him.

Lee spent the next few minutes looking us over but spent the longest time inspecting my injuries. As it turned out I had a lot of cuts, scrapes, and bruises which were the least of my problems and therefore mostly neglected by Naruto's chakra to heal on their own. Both of my hands had sustained second degree burns from the Buddhist staff but my right hand was completely healed thanks to having been the entry point for the flow of healing chakra from Naruto's body. My left hand was weak and still stung under the bandages which we decided not to remove just yet. Among my worst injuries were my two head injuries: one on my temple from when my father slammed my face onto the floor covered in cut glass, the second and more obviously severe of the two was at the back of my head from the fall.

I'd also apparently had several broken bones and other internal injuries from the fall which Naruto's chakra had already or mostly healed. I had a broken fibula in my left leg that wasn't healing as fast which Tsunade told Lee the snake bite was interfering with. I looked down at my left leg while Lee inspected the back of my head for fresh bleeding. I could tell it was swollen even under the bandages and the immobilizer that covered me from ankle to knee. There was also something written in kanji on the bandages peaking out from underneath the brace that I couldn't make heads or tails of. What scared me the most however was, "It doesn't hurt." The rest of my body was achy and sore and painful even through the painkiller Lee had given me earlier. The broken leg though, didn't hurt at all.

Lee pulled back to look at the leg, "It might once you move it around." He said honestly. "Tsunade-san was worried about the snake bite. She said the warding spell they put on it was so powerful that you might not feel anything below the knee, so we were expecting that." He looked up at me seriously, "Don't put any weight on it though."

I nodded in agreement. "So… what's it doing to me?" I asked, failing to keep the worry out of my voice.

Lee shook his head regretfully, "We don't know yet." He said as he leaned forward and carefully undid the immobilizer to inspect the bandages underneath.

Wow, I'd been right about the swelling. "Isn't that dangerous?" I asked nervously.

Lee looked up at me, "It would be if it weren't for Naruto. Normally we'd be worried about compartment syndrome, maybe getting it properly immobilized with a cast but even with the snake poison in your body it's still healing faster than human normal and you haven't suffered any complications from any of your injuries." He sat back giving the injury an optimistic look, "It actually looks a lot better than it did this morning. Tsunade-san and Shizune-san are working on it and told us not to take the bandage off in the meantime." He paused, "Sasuke, do you think you can hold yourself up while I look at Naruto's wound?"

I wasn't sure but nodded anyway. Naruto pushed me forward gently and I sat up on my own while Lee inspected Naruto's bandages. Okay yeah, that hurt. Naruto, forever reading me in some way, pulled the neckline of my yukata down and pressed his palm between my shoulder blades to help take some of my weight and keep skin to skin contact. The gesture made me want to smile.

Lee meanwhile grunted something and I felt Naruto pull back from him, "C'mon man, there's no use in changing my bandages when they're just gonna get wet in the bath." He said shifting again to avoid Lee's outstretched hands. "Like I said, I'll change them myself later!"

Lee sat back and I turned my head slightly, catching his look of hesitation. "Okay… but use the shower instead. There's a bathroom through that door over there," He indicated a door to the left I hadn't noticed before and started gathering the bowls and the soiled bandages he'd removed. "I'll take the dishes up and bring you some clothes."

"Hold it!" Naruto grabbed his bowl with the last of his ramen and gulped it down.

I looked over my other shoulder at him incredulously, "Isn't that cold?"

He blinked at me innocently before setting the bowl back down on the tray, "So? It's still good."

I shook my head, choosing not to say anything else. Lee picked up the tray one handed as he stood up and hovered for a moment before reminding us to call for him if we needed anything. "We'll be fine, Lee." Naruto said with good natured exasperation. Lee smiled again and nodded before he finally left.

Not even two seconds after Lee was out the door I cursed and snatched the front of Naruto's yukata as he surprised me by lifting me off the futon in one swift move. I quickly closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the crook of his neck to anchor myself against the wave of dizziness that washed over me. As soon as the room stopped spinning I kicked him with my good leg. "Ow! What the heck was that for?"

I risked opening my eyes to stare at him incredulously, "Are you really asking me that? You could warn a guy before you do that, asshole!"

"Tch, back to your old self I see." He said looking ahead as he carried me across the room.

I studied Naruto's face while he slid the door open with his foot, taking us inside the bath and sighed. "I really need you to not be such a mother hen, Naruto. We're getting enough of that from Lee."

He pushed one of the wooden stools against the wall and set me down carefully on it so I could lean. "Well, excuse me for worrying about my boyfriend…" he grumbled.

He wasn't looking at me when he said it so I wasn't sure what he was feeling just then but any retort I may've been preparing died in my throat when I heard him say that word. Boyfriend. My heart skipped a beat and I felt a smile tugging at my lips. That had really happened, hadn't it? "That feels like a hundred years ago." I said in a hushed voice.

Naruto was holding my hand as he knelt down in front of me, keeping the contact. He rested his cheek against my knee and looked up at me with the most earnest expression I'd ever seen on a person. "I'd do it, you know; for a hundred years and more."

I didn't know how many hundreds he had already lived but the reminder that I would be joining him in his immortality was sobering. I brought the hand that wasn't taken to caress his other cheek and he closed his eyes against the touch. I didn't say anything after that; far too aware of the impact the past week would have on the rest of my life.

The only thing I let myself focus on was the emotion welling up inside my chest, making it feel both tight and heavy. I knew it would give me the strength to get through all of this and I knew that was something Naruto had given me too. I ran fingers through the soft blonde locks behind his ear and wanted nothing more than to pledge to love him forever as he had just done, but I held off. I wanted it to come from every fiber of my being when I finally said it and as fast as I knew I was falling, I simply wasn't there yet.

00000

It took an hour for Naruto to get us both washed. I had very little strength in me and was pretty useless. The best I could do was to hold myself upright when I couldn't lean on the wall and work at keeping the water away from the bandage on my leg. The most difficult part of the process had been getting out of our clothes but once we were both naked it was much easier for Naruto and I to keep the skin to skin contact while he washed us. That however, was the only thing I was grateful for.

The last time I'd been this naked around someone else was when I was coming out of the womb. I didn't even count that time in Lee's shower because I'd rushed for a towel to cover up with and Naruto had averted his eyes. This was different. I sat there for the entire hour, completely exposed with my boyfriend standing beside me just as naked as I was, scrubbing my back and washing the dried blood out of my hair.

The only thing that saved me from dying of embarrassment was that I was too mortified by all the nudity to … react to it. Naruto on the other hand seemed completely comfortable with it but not completely unaffected. When he knelt down in front of me to wash an unexpected amount of dried blood sticking to my feet I couldn't help but see his half erect member peaking up from between his legs. There was a small dusting of pink that blossomed on his cheeks when he caught me looking, "Sorry, can't help it."

I remember shaking my head and looking away quickly. He didn't say anything else. Just stood up, kissed my forehead, and walked behind me to give me a tiny bit of privacy while he washed himself. I took a deep breath through my nose and let it out of my mouth shakily. I… I didn't want Naruto to think I was rejecting him or anything so I took his hand from my shoulder and I squeezed it gently hoping he would sense the emotions I was feeling and understand.

I felt him pause behind me for a moment, "I know, Sasuke." He said softly. I heard him shift and suddenly there were lips pressed against my bare shoulder. I shuddered and immediately brought my legs together. God damn it.

Naruto finished up not long after that. After returning the detachable shower head to its bracket he managed to reach and grab two towels off the rack without leaving my side and handed me one. After I was as dry as I could manage I wrapped it around myself like a blanket and snuck a peak at the wound on Naruto's belly while he was distracted. It had closed up again but I wasn't naïve enough to think that meant it would stay that way.

When Naruto wrapped his towel around his waist and bent down to pick me up again I put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Are you…?" My eyes flickered to his belly. He followed my line of sight and rolled his eyes.

"Let me be clear about something Sasuke," he said as he hooked an arm under my knees and lifted me up slowly. "I'm not human." I wrapped my arms around his neck when he started walking back into the room. "I'm a kyuubi. That means I'm strong and really quick to recover from little wounds like this because believe me, I've had worse."

My face was carefully neutral when he set me down on the futon. I looked down at the bandage on my leg while Naruto picked up one of the fresh yukatas Lee must've brought us while we were in the shower. The bandage had gotten a little wet but I didn't dare try patting it dry or touching it in anyway. The ink had bled a little but the characters that made up the spell were all still intact. It was a reminder of another problem I had that had yet to be addressed. "You may've had worse," I muttered as Naruto swung the yukata around my shoulders, "but you've never had it while your power was weighed down by…"

His fingers pressed gently against my lips to stop them from moving and he looked at me seriously for a moment before he replaced his fingers with his mouth. He kissed me thoroughly, holding my head there with a hand behind my neck and when he pulled back, he took in my dazed expression and smirked, "You talk too much."

I blinked, "Oh, screw you!"

His smirk widened and he picked up his own yukata, "Sure, one of these days!"

My jaw dropped, "If I didn't need you right now…"

"You'd do what?" Naruto asked with that smirk, "Bleed on me?"

Oh no, he didn't.

When Lee came in it was to find me straddling Naruto and smothering his face with a pillow. I was as weak as a kitten and we both knew it so the show Naruto was making by trying to tug the pillow away and crying 'uncle' through the cotton stuffing only made me laugh in spite of myself. I saw Lee smile out of the corner of my eye, "I guess the shower did you guys good."

I leaned back with my hand on Naruto's chest where his yukata was falling open and the other reaching around to close my own. Naruto tossed the pillow away and looked up at Lee, "Yup, we'll be ready in just a sec." He turned to me and raised an eyebrow, "You know, if Sasuke wants to get off me any time soon."

I grinned and leaned down carefully. "I thought you wanted me here," I whispered into his ear. It went pink immediately and I barked out a short laugh before rolling off him.

Lee continued to smile completely oblivious and went to the wardrobe, "The yukata's really aren't enough. You guys need to get into these before we go outside." He pulled out two pairs of thick socks and a couple black tanzen kimonos. "We're on sacred ground but this is the guest building. We'll have to go through the garden to get to the temple."

I looked at the kimonos and raised an eyebrow, "Is it really that cold out there?"

Lee's smile widened mysteriously, "Yeah."

Naruto's eyes lit up and he reapplied our bandages as quickly as he could before we tied off the yukatas and slipped into the heavier kimonos. Lee kneeled down to put the immobilizer back on my leg while Naruto grabbed our socks and we were ready to go in less than fifteen minutes. Lee, who was already dressed in his own tanzen kimono, turned his back to me and bent down in front of me, "Tsunade-san's bringing you some crutches this afternoon. Until then please accept my help."

I stared at his back. He was expecting me to ride piggyback? Into the temple? Its one thing to get carried around like a sack of potatoes when you're totally out of it and quite another to do that shit in public. "Oh no, you don't." Naruto said supporting some of my weight again with an arm behind my shoulders, his fingers resting on the skin of my neck. He moved to sit beside me and Lee looked back around at him in surprise. "You think I didn't notice that?" Naruto indicated with a thumb over his shoulder at a sling that had been shoved in a dark corner under the window.

Lee's face went red with embarrassment, "It's… that's not… it feels fine now, really!" He said hastily, sitting up straight and determinedly not looking at the item in question. Naruto raised an eyebrow, reached over and grabbed Lee's left shoulder.

Lee cut himself off mid-yelp but the damage was done. "Feels fine… Riiight."

"… how'd you know it was that shoulder?" Lee asked grudgingly as he pulled the arm in slightly.

"Lucky guess," he answered with a smirk. "You also favor it slightly, especially when you think no one's looking. Whatcha do to it?"

Lee sighed and got up to get the sling. He picked it up and reluctantly slipped it back on, sliding the affected arm through it. "It's really nothing… just dislocated it." Lee mumbled under his breath.

Naruto laughed. "Is that all? Sorry but Gaara would filet me if I stood by and let you make your injury worse. I'm actually surprised that busy-body Sakura didn't get on your case over you not wearing it. She seems like the type."

Lee was looking anywhere but at us. "She… doesn't know about it. She's been very focused on you two and I never wear it when she's around."

Naruto shook his head and shuffled in front of me. He moved his grip from my shoulders to my hand and tugged on it lightly. I raised an eyebrow, "So I'm supposed to get on your back now?"

Naruto tugged on me again, "Just do it, moron. Stop wasting time." I flipped him off but he just smirked at me. I sighed, exasperated and pushed myself forward a bit so I could reach my arms around his shoulders.

"Like I've got a choice…" I grumbled under my breath.

"I really wish you'd let me…" Lee started, "your injury…"

"…Is going to heal a lot faster than yours." Naruto finished. He leaned back, grabbed my thighs and stood up quickly. I gripped him tight as another wave of dizziness hit me. It was milder than it had been though. All this moving around, even if exhausting, was doing me some good after three days in bed.

Naruto adjusted his grip and looked at Lee who was watching us with guilt written all over his features. "Alright, lead the way." Naruto said and I could hear the smile in his voice.

00000

TBC

AN mini: Thank you all for surviving the Mayan Apocalypse and coming back to enjoy the last few chapters of my humble experiment that developed a mind of its own.


	7. Happiness, In Exile

AN: I'm back with a massive update. I can't believe this was originally going to be one big chapter together with the previous one. I must be crazy… or my prose is getting purple (I'm so sorry, please let me know what I need to work on to improve).

So porn. Right, um, there originally wasn't supposed to be any but my husband insisted that it couldn't be NaruSasuNaru without porn so thank him for this. Aaaand if it's really terrible (I haven't written any lemons in so long I might as well never have) then … I'll be hiding behind my couch…

Happiness, By Accident  
By: Lotus-chan  
Ch06: Happiness, In Exile

Apparently the smile was reassuring enough because after a moment Lee shot us a small apologetic smile of his own and gestured to the door. "Okay, follow me."

Lee led us out of the room and through a few corridors until we arrived at what looked like a back door. As Lee and Naruto slipped into a pair of sandals that had been left there for them I noticed that it was considerably colder here. I didn't have long to wonder why. Lee walked ahead to slide open the door and what greeted us was a winter wonderland.

In Tokyo the chill had come early but it was still too early for more than a few flurries. Here in the mountains of Hokkaido however, everything was already sprinkled with a fine layer of white powder. Lee led us onto a covered walkway that connected the guest house to the temple. The walkway was elevated about three feet from the ground and cut through the north end of a vast Japanese garden. Most of the garden lay to our right where we could hear the sound of a deer chaser and flowing water, indicating that there was a stream nearby which had not yet frozen over.

A few yards to the left of the walkway the garden ended in a shear drop at a cliff face and revealed a stunning view of the mountains beyond as if plucked straight from a period film. I could see the side of Naruto's face and noticed that he was just as impressed by the sight as I was. He looked back at me, smiled and took a deep breath of sweet mountain air before gazing back over the garden again. In a moment of sudden insight I realized that Naruto was probably more than just impressed by the garden's beauty. "Feels familiar?" I asked curious to see if I was right. The smile he sent back to me was dazzling.

"Gaara really liked it too." I heard Lee say.

Naruto, who was walking just behind him, leaned forward to look at Lee's face and gently bumped shoulders with him reassuringly. "He'll be ok." He said quietly. I felt Lee take a shuddering breath but he nodded and there was a small but honest smile on his face when he turned to look at Naruto.

We were at the temple in no time and just as we got inside, a few mikos walking in the corridor stopped to bow deeply to us and welcome us with smiling faces before heading off again. "They're happy to see you guys awake and about." Lee said. He left his sandals at the door and took off in the opposite direction the mikos had gone, "Especially Naruto."

"Me?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

Lee nodded, "You're the kyuubi. The priestesses feel honored to have you here and to be providing you sanctuary."

Naruto blinked and smirked, "Cool."

I leaned forward over his shoulder to look at him, "Didn't you used to live in a temple?"

Naruto shrugged, "Yeah, but that was a really long time ago and I wasn't the only fox."

"You are now." The voice drew our attention to a priestess with short dark hair who was standing in front of an open door. She bowed to Naruto with a fond smile, "We are honored to have you and your friends here with us. My name is Shizune, I am the high priestess of this temple." Naruto bowed back slightly, the movement made difficult with me on his back.

She noticed.

"Uchiha Sasuke, I presume?" she asked, nodding to me in a slightly less formal bow. I nodded back. "Before you enter, there are a few things I must explain." She said looking at my ankle and raising her gaze to meet mine. "The ward we placed on your leg is powerful. In fact, once you go inside it will be the most powerful magic in the room. Normally I wouldn't have the two spells in such close proximity to one another but…" This time she glanced at Naruto, "circumstances being what they are, we'll just have to be careful."

I saw Naruto frown curiously, "I can feel the magic of the ward on Sasuke's leg. I know how powerful it is and it's not nearly as powerful as the magic you'd need to seal Gaara."

"We're talking about two completely different spells here," she clarified. "… and the spell we selected to seal Gaara with is intentionally weak." She said, glancing at Lee sympathetically and acknowledging him with a nod. "We're not trying to restrain him. Once you're inside you'll be able to sense that this seal is not powerful enough to hold him by far and that's the key. Gaara could break out of this seal at any moment; he has more than enough power to do so and that is exactly why we choose to use it."

At Naruto's confused look, Lee said, "The seal keeps the power that protects the temple from attacking him and the fact that he's willingly allowing it to bind him even though he can break out whenever he wants will work in his favor when we appeal to the goddess." Lee sounded a bit tired and as though he was reciting someone else's words. His face was solemn, the worry coming through unbidden. "May I?" he asked Shizune and she nodded, stepping aside so that he could walk in.

When Naruto made to follow Shizune held up a hand. "Just a moment, there's one more thing." Her eyes darted back to me before settling back on him so fast I almost didn't catch it. "Like I said before, Sasuke's seal will be the strongest magic in the room which is why I need you to be careful not to let him too close to the power circle." She finally looked at me and I could tell that something was making her uncomfortable, "If you get too close, the seal on your leg will start to leach power from the spell on Gaara and it will collapse. We don't want that to happen while we're trying to appeal to the goddess. It could be very dangerous for him..." 'Ah,' I thought, 'so that's why she's so nervous,' I nodded to let her know that I understood and Naruto did the same.

Shizune stepped aside and when we entered the room I gasped. The amount of condensed chakra in this room was _oppressive_. For a few seconds it was so overwhelming that it was hard to breathe. Then I felt Naruto's chakra in my mind again coming to my defense, sliding passed my weakened mental barriers and all of a sudden not only could I breathe again but I could _see_ it. Gaara's chakra was so thick in the air it was like a glittering blue fog. His sand crawled and pulsed along the ground, up the walls, and fell occasionally in small grainy handfuls from the ceiling. It covered every inch of the room where the other priestesses weren't sitting chanting and gave the circle in the middle of the room a wide berth.

That circle was what drew my attention because there he was. Gaara was sitting in the very center of the circle surrounded by a slow moving whirlwind of his own chakra. On the floor a series of rings had been drawn in white chalk with Gaara sitting, eyes closed, at its center. Immediately surrounding him, the first innermost ring separated him from a small amount of his sand completely unmoving on the ground almost as if reflecting Gaara's current state of apparent suspended animation. A second outer ring contained the spell itself written in classic Japanese and surrounded by a final thicker ring completely colored in with white. Candles were placed in a five point star pattern on the outside of it.

As Naruto walked the sand moved away from his foot falls, clearing from the floor where he stepped. He finally stopped behind a priestess with long blonde hair who sat directly in front of Gaara, her head bowed and eyes closed in meditation. Lee was seated slightly to her right with his tray of beads and three other priestesses were seated behind Gaara against the far wall including Sakura.

Naruto kneeled down carefully and set me down on the ground first. I laid a hand on the ground to steady myself while he walked around behind me. He sat down and pulled me against his chest all this without his touch ever leaving me in some way. I was grateful. The painkillers could only do so much and I was already tired. Oh, who was I kidding, I'd woken up tired. "Let me know if you need to go back to the room." Naruto whispered in my ear.

I scoffed, "Says the guy with a hole in his stomach."

As if to prove to me that it wasn't as bad as it sounded, he pulled me up against him tighter. "Hey that hole is almost completely healed by now smartass." I was about to respond when I felt a weird prickling sensation on my lap and noticed the sand crawling over me.

"What the…" It moved over my legs and bent the one with the snake bite back towards me and away from the circle. I looked around to see if the sand was touching anyone else. It was steering clear of the priestesses but was sliding over Naruto's ankles. When I looked over at Lee again though, I noticed for the first time that Gaara's sand was all over him. Tiny streams of it slinked around his shoulders and into his kimono, coming out around his arms and settling around a bandaged hand while he used a small tool to make a hole in the last bead. Other thin streams crawled up around his waist and legs; there was a small churning pool of it in his lap. It… strangely reminded me of a small frightened animal seeking comfort.

"Familiarity," I looked at the blonde priestess and she smiled at me over her shoulder. "Lee has been with Gaara the longest and has a special connection with him. Gaara's sand is unique. It's a part of him but also seems to have a mind of its own. Being separated from him has it looking for people Gaara is closest to; people he trusts."

I was about to ask her how she knew what I'd been thinking when I noticed how glazed her eyes looked. As though she'd been in a trance before and hadn't completely pulled out of it. My suspicions were confirmed when I noticed the look of surprise on the other mikos sitting along the wall. "My name is Ino," she said by way of introduction with that dazed, far-away look on her face. "It is an honor to have the last kyuubi and his life-mate participate in this ceremony with us."

"Last?!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Life mate?!" I said right on his heals.

We looked at each other in shock before a short giggle interrupted us and we looked back to Ino who had lazily turned her gaze to Lee. "Are you finished?"

Lee set down the last bead and nodded nervously.

"Very well," she said turning back to Gaara in front of her. "Then let us begin." The moment she finished speaking everything in the room changed. The small amount of sunlight that had been bleeding through the paper paneling on the doors abruptly disappeared as though someone had flipped a switch. The only light left came from the five candles around Gaara which instantly changed from a warm yellow light to a brilliant but eerie blood red.

Still sitting upright, Ino's head dropped to her chest for a few minutes before she breathed in audibly and it rose back up slowly. Once this happened I started to have a hard time looking at her. I kept resisting the inexplicable urge to look away and though I forced my eyes to stay on her it was difficult to keep her in focus. The line of her body kept blurring and my mind kept rebelling against the double image my eyes were seeing. It was as if there was another person sitting in the same spot and occupying the same space as Ino.

"_Gaara_," she said and her voice was like a freight train to the chest. Naruto gasped and I gripped his hand in mine tightly. Ino's voice was still her own, still audibly the same, but the extra senses Naruto had given me allowed me to feel the _power_ it carried; a power that had not been there before. The priestesses immediately stopped chanting and the whole room was filled with a loaded silence. There was a strange new energy in the room that quelled Gaara's chakra and took a dominant and commanding presence.

In response to the sound of his name from that voice, Gaara opened his eyes and they were just as glazed as Ino's had been. Quickly, the sand at my feet gathered and covered my leg completely from knee to foot. It hardened on the outside but I stayed calm when I felt the soothing shift of it against my toes. I understood.

Gaara's eyes were half lidded, his gaze somewhere around Ino's knees. The slow moving whirlwind of his chakra within the power circle eased to a stop and then pulled itself inward and inside of him. It was one of the most bizarre things I'd ever seen because I could see his chakra moving beneath his skin after that. Naruto leaned forward slightly and whispered in my ear, "Can you see it? How tightly he's holding onto it?" I could, I realized. On the outside Gaara was extremely relaxed: dropped shoulders, face slack, his head listing forward and eyes downcast but on the inside? It was a violent churning mass of chakra screaming to get out.

"The goddess is here," Naruto said with wonder and I considered the look on his face; there was a small smile there and a sense of amazement. He gripped me tighter, "His chakra instinctively knows who and what she is. Since he's not hers yet it's fighting Gaara to get out, to protect him, to get him out of here." Naruto paused and he was more serious when he said, "It's the part of him that's afraid of her. Gaara has pulled it all inside himself because he knows that if his chakra gets away from him and touches the first ring of the power circle, it will collapse the spell." I swallowed hard, instinctively aware that if anything happened everyone in this room was at risk. "They really should've chosen a better spell than this." Naruto added, the first trace of nervousness coming through. "It's way too weak to hold someone as powerful as he is. It's like trying to contain a typhoon in a paper bag."

As if she'd heard Naruto speaking, Ino/Inari turned slightly, sitting at an angle to us now, in order to look at him and smiled sweetly. She reached her hand out to him, "_beloved one_." She said in the same powerful voice. Naruto lifted the hand I wasn't holding and reached out to take hers. As soon as their hands touched I was overwhelmed by countless jumbled up emotions ghosting through from our link but which mostly consisted of: powerloveprotecthappinesschi ldmothermine.

When she let him go Naruto pulled his hand back and wrapped both arms around me, burying his face in my neck. I didn't move; only squeezed his hands reassuringly as I watched the love in Ino/Inari's bright red eyes fade as she looked away from Naruto and back to Gaara. The contrast was huge. What I could see of her face from this angle was all hard lines and shrewd consideration. She hadn't looked at me at all and for that I was grateful.

"_Do you know who I am_?" The goddess asked.

Gaara blinked slowly, "yes." He said in a voice akin to someone only half conscious.

"_Then know that I am here to asses if you are worthy of what you ask. If you offer me lies, I will know it. If you twist your words or their meaning, I will know it. If your answers fail to satisfy me, you will die. If you try to run away because you have failed to satisfy me, you will die. If I am satisfied then you will be mine until the day you die. Do you understand?_"

Gaara was completely unmoving but his chakra was even wilder within him. Still, he didn't hesitate, "yes." The sand outside the power circle continued to move lazily about. The only change was how more of it gathered around Lee, Naruto and myself like it was intimidated or afraid.

"_Why have you trespassed into my temple?_" she asked abruptly and I heard someone inhale sharply. I glanced at Lee for a moment and saw how tense he was. He was gripping the front of his kimono tightly over his heart and I realized then just how terrified he must be for Gaara.

"I was forced onto the grounds by a priestess." He answered calmly.

"_Why?_"

"I was traveling with friends who needed my protection. They came to the temple for sanctuary and everyone could cross the grounds except for me."

The goddess paused for several minutes, "_Who were you protecting?_"

"Lee, Naruto, and Sasuke."

She slapped a hand down onto the thick outer layer of the power circle and it vanished. "_You were protecting the last kyuubi?_" She said looking at him hard.

"Yes."

"_From whom?_" She ducked her head slightly to look in his eyes and he raised them obediently.

"Sasuke's enemies." He replied and I shuddered. I did not want the spotlight on myself.

"_You were also protecting my kyuubi's spellbound master?!_"

I inched back into Naruto's chest subconsciously and he gripped me even tighter. I could feel the protectiveness coming through our bond but I also knew, deep in my bones, that if the goddess wanted she could tear us apart and leave me without the protection that was keeping me alive.

"Yes." Gaara replied without inflection.

Ino/Inari made a sound that was almost a growl. "_Tell me why I shouldn't kill you for protecting the mortal who has taken what is mine._"

I swallowed hard and felt my heart racing. This was not going well.

"Beacause he is a friend of Lee's and because Naruto is in love with him."

That wasn't something I was aware Gaara knew. It didn't seem to matter though because the goddess had a look on her face like she'd swallowed something sour.

"_Is Uchiha Sasuke not his master? Is he not bound to that mortal against his will and enslaved by him? Could he not be manipulated and deceived by him? Why save him? If you truly meant to protect the kyuubi, why not leave the boy to his fate and see Naruto freed?_"

"Naruto is not a slave. Sasuke has power over him that he doesn't use. The curse has become a bond that helps them and I don't think either of them want to break it."

I stilled. Gaara was speaking with such confidence even through the haze of the spell. He wouldn't dare lie to the goddess which meant that he believed what he was saying. I realized then that this was how people saw us. This was how our relationship looked to other people. The rush of shame I felt pulled my gaze to the ground for a moment because I _had_ used my power over him before. Naruto kissed me behind my ear and caressed the back of my knuckles with his thumb reassuringly. It didn't take the feeling away.

The goddess appeared to be considering his answer. "_My kyuubi are very important to me and Naruto is the last. It pleases me to know that he has a friend willing to protect him should he need it. Would you continue to do so?_"

"Yes." Gaara's answer came easily and immediately.

"_Even at great personal cost?_" She continued.

"Yes."

She paused and her perfect posture in that moment made her look both regal and intimidating. I would never know for certain from this angle but I swore I saw her smirk before she asked, "_If Naruto's life were at stake and he were about to lose it, would you agree to let me take yours to save his?_" She asked.

"No."

"No!"

The second response came from Lee who was holding the tray on his lap in a white knuckled grip and shaking like a leaf. He jumped when she looked at him and then with an anguished look on his face he leaned forward and pleaded, "please don't…"

She ignored him and turned back to Gaara, "_I expected you to refuse. Nobility is an uncommon trait in humans let alone demons. You seemed to poses that rare quality but I am not surprised to be disappointed. A demon's sense of self preservation is difficult to overcome and I can see how it tells you that Naruto is not worth your own life._"

"Wrong."

The candles flared hotly, burning the wax down by half. "_Am I?_" The goddess asked dangerously.

"Yes. Naruto is worth sacrificing my life for but not Lee's." he replied, his eyes still glazed, looking right through her.

"_I asked for your life, not his._" She said curiously.

I didn't see Gaara's blank face when he answered because I couldn't look away from Lee. He was still shaking, breathing shallowly, and there were fat tears in his eyes threatening to fall at any moment. "Yes you did." Gaara said and I realized what he was saying. Gaara wasn't concerned for his own life at all but he knew that if anything were to happen to him, it would destroy his lover. I didn't want to think about what would happen to Lee, what was implied in Gaara's statement if anything. All I knew was the look on Lee's face, the reckless determination and solemn resignation in every aspect of his expression.

The goddess's voice was curious, "_Who is Lee that you value his life more than your own, more than my kyuubi?_"

Gaara's eyes still weren't focused but his head turned slightly in the direction he knew Lee to be, "The only thing in my life that matters."

Lee lifted a hand to cover his face before the tears building in his eyes could fall so he didn't see it when the goddess placed her hand on top of the written part of the spell and it began to glow the same red as the candles. It was as though the chalk had become pure light energy and when she pulled her hand back it began to spin so fast all I could see was a ring of light. When the goddess spoke again her voice was the softest it had been since she had greeted Naruto. "_You're in love with a mortal?_"

"Yes."

The ring of light merged with the next line of chalk and freed the dormant sand. But the sand didn't move even when the ring of light touched it as it shrunk inward towards the last line of chalk around Gaara. "_You talk about love a lot for a demon who's known it for so little. Is that why you're risking so much? Are you sure you're in love? Lee will die eventually. Even if you find his future incarnations they may not always love you back. Lee may even decide in this lifetime that he made a mistake. That he doesn't love you at all. That he's better off with someone else. What will you do then?_"

Gaara was still leaning slightly toward Lee when he answered. "I'll love him anyway."

The ring of light had been hovering just short of the last line of chalk. When Gaara spoke those words it rushed forward, merged with the last ring and closed in on him. The red ring rose up his legs, torso, and eventually over top of his body so that it came down his arm and over his right wrist, shrinking to fit around it. Gaara took a deep breath, blinked his eyes and appeared to become aware of his surroundings for the first time since the ceremony began.

"_You have far exceeded my expectations, Gaara of the Sand. I knew I would be pleased, I didn't know I would be proud._" There was a smile in her voice and I felt the entire energy of the room change. The red light became less intimidating and much more warm and comforting.

Ino/Inari reached up and pulled the rubber band from her hair letting it fall loose around her shoulders. She plucked a single hair from her head and said, "_Hair from the priestess medium who believed in him._" She turned to kneel facing Lee and extended her hand to him saying, "_Hair from the mortal who loves him._" Lee blinked in surprise, his eyes were red and moist but his face was dry. It took him a second to get over the shock but his hand quickly darted up to his own head to pluck a hair for her. The goddess then turned to us and extended that same hand to us, "_Hair from the demon brother who vouches for him._" Naruto reached up and plucked a hair from his head happily. I was closer to her so he gave me the hair and I quickly dropped it into her hand. The last thing I expected to see her do after everything she'd said about me was to smile at me but she did.

After pulling her hand back, she arranged the different lengths of hair into her palm and made a fist. When she opened her fist a moment later all the hairs had woven themselves into a tiny braid and were now the same length. She took the tray of beads from Lee's nervous hands and strung each individual bead into the thin braid of hair, whispering something into them every time she picked up another one. Putting the tray aside, she positioned herself facing Gaara again and lifted her hand holding the unfinished bracelet to the ring of light around Gaara's wrist. Bringing her other hand she closed both around his wrist for a few seconds and when she pulled them away the bracelet encircled it; held together by a seamless, continuous thread of braided hair.

"_This bracelet will not come off so long as you are mine. It is an unbreakable sign that you belong to me. My temples will welcome you and my power will protect you; this place is home to you now and you will always be safe here._" She said sitting back.

Gaara looked at the bracelet on his wrist for a moment before raising his gaze to her, "Thank you." He said sincerely.

I didn't see her face but one moment she was sitting up and the next the candles went out and she was falling back. Lee reached out and caught her, hissing when he felt the pull of her weight on his shoulder. Gaara quickly moved in to help and so did Sakura, darting from across the room just as sunlight began to seep in through the doors again.

Just then a door slid open, startling Shizune who had been standing there the entire time, and Tsunade poked her head inside. She noticed how Gaara was awake and smiled at the high priestess, "I was going to ask if you'd started without me but I guess I've answered my own question." Ino was being held up by Sakura and the other miko's were crowding around to check on her. Meanwhile, Lee had thrown himself on Gaara and was hugging him tight enough to bruise.

I sighed and leaned fully back into Naruto, not realizing until then just how tense I'd been. "I hope we never have to do anything like this ever again." I said under my breath. Naruto's only response was to hold me tighter.

00000

As soon as the ceremony was done, Naruto and I held back a few minutes so that Lee and Gaara could have their reunion. Lee was only momentarily distracted by his concern for Ino but as soon as the mikos reassured everyone that she would be fine he let Gaara pull him into a deep kiss that nearly shot my eyebrows into my hairline. I'd never seen them be physically affectionate before and most of what little I'd seen had always been initiated by Lee.

Gaara had a quiet intensity that I'd taken for a wall he'd built between himself and the rest of the world; one that demanded distance and privacy… And maybe I wasn't entirely wrong about that but as much as I knew Gaara cared about Lee, I'd thought that maybe he just wasn't the type to show it. I sighed internally and realized I needed to mind my own business. Lee and Gaara's relationship was obviously not devoid of anything and I decided to just be happy that they'd gotten through this.

Naruto apparently shared my sentiment and showed it. As soon as they could tear themselves away from each other they came up to us and Naruto enthusiastically congratulated Gaara with a few strong slaps on the back that had his overprotective semi-sentient sand moving in agitated circles by our feet. Lee's rosy cheeks and wide smile nearly made you forget about the water still gathering in his eyes. I congratulated him in my own quiet way while the others were distracted and his response was to lean forward and hug me.

When I first met Lee, his need to touch people had made me uncomfortable. Now all I did was sigh, relax and hug him back.

Tsunade broke up the commotion shortly after that declaring that she had some important information to discuss. She'd shown up after the ceremony with a small pet carrier that had a blanket draped over it in one hand and my crutches in the other but by then I was way too exhausted to try them out. Naruto ended up carrying me back to our room where the mikos had brought in a second kotatsu and joined the two together so that we could all gather around comfortably.

As soon as I slipped my legs under the kotatsu, the warmth of it made me the most comfortable I'd been since I'd woken up. I leaned heavily against Naruto who was sitting next to me and thought I'd just relax for a bit while everyone talked about the success of the spell. Just sit here and rest my eyes…

"Sasuke, Naruto!" I blinked my eyes open and felt Naruto startle next to me and jerk his head up. "I'm sorry we're keeping you up like this," Tsunade said from the opposite side of the table, "we'll let you get some rest as soon as we're done here but I'm afraid there are a few pressing matters to discuss which can't wait now that you're both awake."

I watched Naruto blink sleepily and felt a wave of guilt that I'd failed to realize how exhausted he was too. Naruto stifled a yawn and nodded at Tsunade, "Okay, fire away then." He said, eyes droopy. I squeezed his hand under the table and watched as he smiled and squeezed back without looking at me.

Lee was sitting next to me, giving Tsunade his undivided attention, with Gaara on his other side inspecting the bracelet. My demon sight had faded a few minutes ago but I called it back out of curiosity. The bracelet gave off a warm red glow that I was used to seeing in Naruto's chakra but Gaara's chakra was different too. Although it was still blue, there were red sparks going off randomly like tiny solar flares in his aura. The beauty of it distracted me for a couple minutes until Naruto nudged me. I blinked and noticed that everybody was staring at me. "Um…"

Tsunade sighed, "I asked how everyone's injuries were coming along. Do you feel better than you did the last time you woke up?"

Oh. "Yes, much better. Except…" I glanced down thinking of the broken leg and the snake bite.

"Right, well I suppose that's the first order of business. I can tell you now with certainty why it is you both are taking so long to heal." She said looking at both of us in turn. Naruto's wandering attention shot back to her expectantly. "The separation at the train station had a small hand to play but the real reason is the demon venom in your system, Sasuke. It's consuming Naruto's chakra almost as fast as he can get it into you. It's essentially causing Naruto to bleed chakra at a constant rate and it's a drain that's difficult to keep up with, even for Naruto."

"In fact," Shizune added from her seat beside Tsunade, "If it had been any other demon, both of you would be dead by now."

"So what do we do?" Lee asked, determination in every line of his body; like a soldier waiting for orders. The fondness that overcame me just then tugged a smile onto my lips before I could catch it.

"We're already doing it." Tsunade answered. "Being in this temple, surrounded by its protections, is already providing Naruto with the extra strength he needs to keep this thing from catching up with his stamina." She looked back at Naruto and her gaze softened, "It might've been easier for you if you didn't have to expend so much chakra healing yourself and Sasuke but that is no one's fault." The last part she directed at me. I swallowed quietly and held my tongue.

"The other thing we're doing to help is the ward." Shizune said when Tsunade tapered off. "The spell written on your bandages will keep the venom from spreading and prevent it from doing any more damage. We believe that with time and once all your other injuries have healed, Naruto's chakra will be able to focus on your leg to both heal the bone and burn the venom from your body." She said glancing at Tsunade who nodded.

Naruto had a distracted, thoughtful look on his face when I looked to gauge his reaction, "There's only ever been one time I've had trouble healing demon venoms… but it's not… it was such a long time ago, it's not possible…"

Tsunade reached around behind her and pulled the small pet carrier she'd brought with her onto the table. "Now, this is just a hunch but…" She pulled the blanket off to show the pet carrier was covered with paper wards and hand written spells applied with a brush in thick black ink. She turned the door towards us when she opened it so we could see inside. "Does this look familiar?"

"That's him!" I said at the same time Naruto cursed.

Inside the pet carrier was what looked like a small green garden snake. It was still, as though asleep and it had a sickly purple glow to it that was all too familiar. I heard Naruto mumble 'I knew it…' before he directed his gaze to the priestesses.

"It's Manda." Naruto said to Tsunade. "I suspected ever since the beginning but I didn't get a good look at him the day he bit Sasuke and I had my doubts…"

"Why?" Tsunade asked, checking the lock once she closed the door to Manda's cage.

"Because Manda disappeared a long time ago. He was one of the most powerful demons I'd ever met and one day poof! vanished into thin air. And that was already a couple years before I got sealed into a tablet. I thought maybe he'd pissed off the wrong priest and gotten exorcised or something."

"Apparently not," Gaara said from his end of the table.

"It makes sense now though." Naruto said looking at the cage. "His was the only demon venom I'd ever had trouble healing." He frowned and looked up at Tsunade again, "How did you catch him?"

"It wasn't as hard as I expected it to be. When I got to where the fight was happening, Gaara was giving the snake a run for its money." I saw Lee smile at Gaara with pride. "The man who was driving you to the temple is an old friend of mine and a Buddhist priest. Together we trapped Manda in a spell while Gaara kept him distracted and then sealed him into this … smaller form."

"Has he been interrogated?" Gaara asked not without a little menace.

Tsunade sighed, "Unfortunately we've been unable to get anything out of him. Shortly after we captured him he began to beg for us to set him free; wouldn't say anything else, wouldn't even try to cut a deal. After a while his begging turned to screaming and we had to force him into unconsciousness. He seemed to be in excruciating pain but wouldn't tell us how or why. None of the spells we placed on him should've caused him any pain."

Gaara sneered, "does that mean we can kill him?"

Lee gave him a sharp look that he ignored but Tsunade shook her head. "Even if I were inclined to let you do that there's still too much we don't know. Why did he attack Sasuke in the first place? What could he have to gain from it? What is so important about Sasuke that he would come back to finish the job?"

"Where has he been all this time..?" Naruto muttered under his breath.

"Who's he working for..?" Lee added almost inaudibly.

That got Tsunade's attention, "You think he might be doing this on someone else's orders?"

"I don't know… Manda's not the type to follow orders…" Naruto said frowning.

Lee looked at me, "but there is someone out there who knows something about demons and wants you dead, Sasuke."

I blinked, "Not that I wouldn't put it past him but there weren't any giant snakes sealed in the tablets beneath my house … and Manda bit me before my father decided I was better off dead." It wasn't even difficult talking about my father this way. I guess accepting that my own father wanted me dead just wasn't that hard. That said a lot about the kind of father he'd been to me.

Tsunade nodded slowly, processing. "Manda's motivations are no doubt a big piece of the puzzle but until he starts talking all we can do is speculate; which brings me to the next order of business. Sasuke," I turned to face her, "Naruto told me back in Tokyo that your father doesn't have much time left."

"Two months or less." I agreed.

"Then that is how long we will be here."

"What?" I looked around shocked that no one else seemed to be shocked.

"We have two major problems but one is going to go away in two months so that is the minimum amount of time that you will have to spend here. It's probably going to take about that long for your broken leg to heal and in the mean time we will do our best to figure out why Manda seems so interested in ensuring you are dead." No one reacted to the cold hearted way Tsunade referred to my father's impending death; just stating the facts. The only issue I caught was,

"Why am I the only one surprised?" I asked, looking at all the faces around me.

Lee and Gaara looked at each other before Lee turned back to me, "We kinda discussed this on the train." He said sheepishly, "There's not much we can do while your father's around trying to kill us."

"Your father's influence carries a lot of weight, kid." Tsunade said, drawing my attention back to her. "I couldn't even sneak you into my hospital for an x-ray like I'd wanted to because your father owns the hospital I work for. The only reason I have you in an immobilizer and not a cast is because Naruto insisted that your bone was aligned and the cast would get in his way." She shot a subdued glare at Naruto telling him how unhappy she still was with that.

Naruto ignored it, "I just figured that's what the plan would be." He said with a shrug. "Not surprised it worked out this way. I just want us to be someplace safe until the bastard keels over." He looked at me with worry edging his features, "I'm with Tsunade on this one. If Manda's not working alone then this is the best place to be in case of a demon attack."

I turned to Lee, "What about you? Don't you have school? Your uncle? The Dojo?"

Lee scratched the back of his head and sighed, "I home school actually. I have a web tutor and turn in my assignments online. It was the best way to balance school and the dojo!" He said quickly at the surprise on my face.

"That and avoid the other kids who treated you like you like crap." Gaara said with quiet anger.

"It wasn't that bad." Lee whispered back. Gaara just stared.

Lee cleared his throat and turned back to me with a smile that looked a little forced, "Anyway, I can finish my semester up here, there's not much of it left. Tsunade already said she'd let me borrow her computer. They're still renovating the dojo so classes are cancelled until the beginning of the year and my uncle… he's on a business trip, and he won't mind."

"Business trip?" Naruto asked.

"World Taijutsu Championships in Beijing. He's a judge." Gaara replied.

"Okay, am I the only one who has a problem with this set up?" I asked looking around the room and stopping on Shizune. "You can't expect me to believe that you're okay with a bunch of freeloaders that have people trying to kill them staying in your temple for two months?"

Shizune was silent a moment, looking at her clasped hands. "Ino is a powerful medium. In fact this temple is known for its powerful mediums but the last time any medium of this temple was able to successfully channel the goddess Inari was three hundred years ago… until this afternoon." She lifted her gaze to both of us. "We had faith it would work because Naruto was here. All the kyuubi are gone but one and having him here is a blessing to this temple, not a curse. The priestesses have started to see foxes near the temple again, flowers have sprouted around the torii gate at the entrance to the temple in spite of the snow and winter chill. The priestesses even say they have felt inexplicable gusts of warm air while working outside. This is your doing." She said just to Naruto. "If the goddess has blessed us with her presence it is because we are host to her messenger. So yes, please stay as long as you like." She said with a smile.

Naruto bit his lip and looked away. There was a small amount of pink on his cheeks and I threw a hand up in surrender. "Okay okay, we'll stay."

Naruto snorted, "Um, I don't think our friends would've let us leave anyway." He whispered into my ear.

I sighed internally and looked around at all of them as they discussed more of the details behind our stay. How the temple wouldn't be accepting any more people to their guest house until we left. What spells they might use in order to get information out of Manda. Where would Lee and Gaara be able to spar without breaking anything.

I leaned back against Naruto and felt him wrap an arm around me, the other still holding my hand. Somehow we'd managed to surround ourselves with people who cared about us… and who we cared about. The thought frightened me though because these were all good people that I'd put in great danger.

I felt Naruto lean back down towards my ear, "I can hear you thinking." I frowned and looked back at him but he was smiling at me. "Stop worrying so much. You're not getting rid of any of us so you better get used to this."

I looked away, "So you can finally read my mind then?"

He snorted, which was pretty friggen loud right next to my ear. "No, you just make it easy."

I elbowed him in the gut and he stifled a laugh, "Things are changing for the better, Sasuke. We're not alone anymore."

He dropped a kiss onto my ear but I was too distracted by the 'we' in that last sentence to react; because it wasn't just me. I looked up at Naruto, at his smile, then to Lee and Gaara who were discussing something amongst the two of them. It wasn't just me and that's why all of this was worth it to them. None of us were alone anymore.

00000

One Week Later

The whole first week in the temple was a blur. I didn't have another fully lucid episode like I'd had during Gaara's adoption ceremony for days after. I was unconscious for most of that week; the pain and the dizziness and nausea was too much so if it wasn't the meds keeping me under it was Naruto's chakra. The few episodes of clearheaded wakefulness I did have I spent thinking about my brother and how much I wished he were still here and mourning my uncle who'd tried so hard to be what my father hadn't been. Thinking about my mother hurt too much…

00000

Two Weeks Later

Time passed and the blanket of snow on the ground quickly got thicker. My injuries were starting to heal faster, the superficial cuts and bruises were almost all gone and so were the headaches, nausea and lethargy I'd been having courtesy of my skull fracture. The worst of it was the leg and my burned hand which was still weak; it was frustrating when I couldn't properly hold onto the crutches to get around.

There wasn't much to do at the temple so I spent some of my time learning how to handle the flood of demon chakra constantly pouring into my system. It was more intense now than it had ever been and it was starting to have an effect on me. I could do more than see auras, I could feel them now too and my demon sight was on all the time unless I made the effort to shut it off. My temperature had shot up the first week of our stay and Sakura thought I was running a dangerously high fever until Naruto realized that my core temperature had risen to match his. It was clear his chakra was changing me but as much as a part of me thought I should be concerned about it, another larger reckless part of me … thought it was pretty cool.

Tsunade came by to check up on us at least twice a week and to update us on any progress she'd made but so far it wasn't much. All Manda did when she woke him was scream and the information on my father was virtually nonexistent.

Tsunade told us that the explosion in my apartment after the double lightning strikes had made the news and the police had conducted a week long investigation of the apartment when they realized that I was missing. My father had been forced to make a statement to the press and file a missing persons report but had pretty much dropped off the face of the earth directly after. Unfortunately that meant my face had been plastered on every TV screen for nearly every news segment every day ever since.

What did that translate to? Near total confinement. Lee, Gaara, Naruto and I were allowed almost anywhere we wanted on temple grounds but if any visitors showed up we'd all get rushed back to the guest house until they were gone. I felt like an inmate and as beautiful as this place was, I couldn't help feeling like I'd escaped one prison just to get thrown into another. The only upside was the fact that my curse didn't seem to have any power here. I hadn't had a single accident yet.

It was the only reason Naruto had allowed himself to relax enough to do what he was doing right now. I sat on the covered walkway that cut through the garden watching as Gaara and Naruto sat in the snow, meditating. Gaara had started doing that after the adoption to 'get closer to the goddess', or so he said and I remembered with a smile the first time that he'd asked Naruto to join him. I hadn't thought that Naruto had the patience for meditation but I'd been wrong. Through our bond I was able to feel his concentration, the peace that meditation afforded him, and feel a tenuous warmth from the goddess that I could see surrounding both of them like a ghostly fire.

I never joined them in their meditations. I was too stressed with everything that was happening to us but I was glad when Naruto did it. These were one of the few times I could sit still with a book or lean against the wooden rail watching them and just breathe.

00000

Three Weeks Later

His screams echoed throughout the room. They were screams of excruciating pain; pure agony unlike I had ever witnessed and louder than I thought a creature so small could ever produce. Tsunade tried to verbally adjust the spell, her hands raised in a complicated seal, but her voice was drowned out by Manda's howls and she gave a frustrated huff before giving up and slapping the paper wards back onto the pet carrier. The room instantly fell quiet. I watched as Manda's body went limp from its contorted coil, the wards forcing him back into enchanted sleep.

"You gave up too quickly," Gaara said from where he stood at one end of the table.

Tsunade glared at him, "This is not the first time I've done this, Gaara of the Sand," she said sharply, "and if there's one thing experience has taught me it's that if it doesn't work from the beginning, it won't. Spells either do their job or they don't, delayed reactions happen only on purpose, and torturing Manda is not going to get us what we want."

Gaara had a look on his face like he disagreed but before he could reply Naruto put his elbows on the table and leaned forward to look inside the pet carrier. "Why is he in so much pain though? Is it the temple?"

Tsunade sighed and shook her head, "No, the seals I placed on him mean the temple's protections aren't affecting him. He reacts like this when I take him home with me too. I've tried everything I can think of: shields, healing spells, hypnotism, purifications, I've even dabbled in some western magic but nothing seems to get passed this horrible pain he's in. Whatever … or whoever has a hold on him, it's powerful." She paused and I could see in her face that she was debating whether or not to say what she said next, "It may be more powerful than I am."

"I'm not sure I like what that implies about our enemy." Lee said, in a rare moment of nervous uncertainty.

"It doesn't matter." Gaara said, "The fact that we haven't been attacked yet means that our enemy either hasn't discovered our location or if he has then he is unable to bypass the temple's divine protection…"

"Yes but we can't stay here forever," I said interrupting him. "I'm sick and tired of hearing how perfect and how safe this place is. We've been trapped here for weeks with no word on my father, no information on this potential second enemy, all we have are speculations and a snake that needs to be put out of its misery!"

"Sasuke…" Naruto said straightening up and reaching out for me.

"No!" I said, tightening my hold on my crutches and moving back a step. "Staying here is not the solution to our problems!" I was restless, worried, stressed and I knew it was affecting me; I knew it was all boiling over but I couldn't stop myself. "Our situation is no different than Manda's except for the fact that we imprisoned ourselves! I can't stay locked in a cage forever even if it means I'd be safe from whatever or whoever it was that sent Manda after me!"

"Sasuke, no one is saying…"

"We are trapped in this place and all of you are perfectly happy waiting here until doomsday if we have to before we can leave! Tsunade, you said two months was the minimum. So what's the max?!"

"Sasuke…"

But I didn't stop to listen, I turned around and hobbled my stupid broken leg out the door. I heard Naruto apologize and then come after me, "Naruto, please don't say anything." But it wasn't an order. I'd made him a promise the day Gaara had been 'adopted' that I wouldn't give him orders anymore. We were way passed that stage and I didn't need anything else to feel ashamed about. Naruto sighed but said nothing as we slowly made the walk back to our room.

Strangely enough it was Tsunade who came to the door an hour later. She sat down next to me at the kotatsu and spoke to me calmly about all the things she planned to do to help us, about how she wasn't giving up and generally made me feel like a douche bag for blowing up the way I had. She wasn't doing it intentionally though. She put her arm around me and was patient and answered my questions but after some time I began to sense something in me that wasn't mine. Naruto was smiling softly at her while she talked to us and there was so much love there. I remembered how Naruto considered her his mother and the more I picked up on how much he cared about her, the worse I felt.

Yeah I felt bad for yelling at Naruto's mother but I also felt bad for being the smallest bit jealous of him. I felt Tsunade make a soothing circular motion with her hand on my back and I looked up at her just in time to see her lean down and whisper something into my ear, "Please leave the worrying to me Sasuke. We'll figure this one out. Anyone who wants to mess with my boys is going to have to go through me first."

I blinked in surprise and saw the smirk on her face before she turned away to speak again to Naruto. I began to relax by inches and suddenly I was just tired. I let Tsunade wrap her arm around me and I leaned against her tentatively. When I felt her respond by gripping me tighter I sighed and all the tension left me. "I'm sorry," I said under my breath. Her smile widened a fraction but she didn't say a word.

00000

One Month Later

I used the end of my crutch to close the door behind me as I left Shizune's room. She changed the bandage around my leg once a day and had to carefully rewrite the warding spell onto them every time. It was exhausting work for her because the spell was so powerful and I felt the tug of guilt every time I sat down to let her work. Everyone was doing so much for me and as grateful as I was… I also hated it. I hated not being able to do anything. I was just so tired of being taken care of.

Walking onto the covered walkway between the temple and the guest house I saw Gaara sitting in the snow, meditating in the garden again. His aura was bright and the tiny red flares it usually emitted were larger and wilder. The beauty of it distracted me for a moment and I reached out instinctively with my new senses to see what I could feel... It was warmth, and welcoming, there was a sense of coming home. I pulled back before I invaded Gaara's privacy any more. Gaara and Naruto never minded when I piggybacked on their meditations but this one felt private.

I blinked away the demon sight and when I looked again I realized that he was alone, neither Lee nor Naruto were with him. Thinking about Naruto made me start walking again and a few seconds later I was closing the guest house door behind me. Now that both of my hands were completely healed I was able to get around with my crutches easier and faster.

Slipping out of the one sandal I moved the crutches forward down the hall and just as I was approaching Lee and Gaara's room I heard Lee's voice sound distressed and stopped. "…couldn't stand by and do nothing! What kind of person would that make me? And he's my friend, they both are…" he trailed off weakly.

I heard a considering hum and another voice came in through the low volume of laptop speakers. "I see… I understand your motivations Lee but I was surprised when I got home and you still weren't back. You said you're in Hokkaido?"

"Yes… are you mad?" Lee asked uncertainly.

"And it's to help a friend, you said?" The voice asked, ignoring his question.

"Yes, Gai-sensei." Oh, his uncle. I walked forward into the doorway and saw Lee sitting at an angle from the door. The screen was half turned away from me but I could still see the sudden grin and the thumbs up Lee's uncle gave him.

"That's the pupil I raised! Strong, Determined, and Loyal! Anyone should be proud to have you for a friend, Lee! Your steadfast dedication to all the important things in life: Honor, Taijutsu, Friendship, and Love are the things that make you shine above all…" I started to block him out right about then and cleared my throat to get Lee's attention.

Lee barely pulled his very relieved, starry-eyed expression away from his uncle and sensei long enough to notice I was there but when he did he smiled at me and quickly turned back to the screen. "Uncle! I'm so sorry to interrupt you but I have to take care of something."

I saw the figure on screen nodding, "Of course Lee, of course." There was a pause and when Gai's voice came back all the levity and humor was gone, "Do you still have Gaara with you?" Lee nodded and Gai made another 'hmm' noise before he straightened up and said, "I know there must be a good reason you're not telling me everything and I hope that when your ordeal is over you will. I trust that you're doing what you think is right. Just don't forget that I'm here if you need help, no matter what."

Lee was tearing up, "Thank you, Uncle."

Gai-sensei saluted, "Call me again soon." And the connection went dead.

Lee sighed with a smile and wiped away at his wet eyes before he looked up at me again, "Hi Sasuke, how're you feeling?"

"Fine," I said glancing back at the laptop. "You're uncle…"

"Oh, it's fine!" Lee said standing up, "I knew he would understand. Even when I don't always know how to tell him things, he always gets it." He said directing a smile back to the laptop screen.

"Must be nice…" I said softly, the words coming out unbidden.

"Hmm?" Lee blinked at me not having caught that and thank the goddess.

"You asked me to come by after Shizune was done." I said to quickly change the subject.

"Oh, right!" Lee rushed off to his wardrobe and threw the doors open. "We've been using the guest house yukatas so much that I completely forgot about our own clothes, and that they could probably use a wash. So this morning when I was getting the laundry together, this fell out of the pocket of my jeans."

He said the last while walking back towards me and opened his palm to reveal… Naruto's necklace. "It was on the bed next to your hand when I went to carry you off the train. I'm sorry I held onto it for so long, I completely forgot I had it."

I clutched the crutch under my arm and took the necklace. "Thank you. It's Naruto's actually but I'll give it back to him."

Lee frowned curiously and leaned around to look behind me, "Where _is_ Naruto?"

"Sleeping." I said, pocketing the necklace. "It's the only time we can be away from each other without the spell hurting him for it." Lee made an 'ah' sound and nodded. "Was there anything else?"

Lee shook his head but then hesitated, "Um, unless there's anything you need that I can help you with?" he said with an honest and eager smile.

I bristled but tried not to let it show on my face. "No, I'm fine. We're still on for more lessons after my leg is healed right?"

His smile widened, "Absolutely!"

I turned quickly and started heading back into the hallway. "Thanks Lee."

"No problem! Oh and tell Naruto I'm sorry for keeping it so long!" I nodded back to him before I turned the corner out of sight. I'd tell Naruto for him but I knew Naruto wouldn't mind. Mostly I just needed to get out of there. Just like Tsunade, Shizune, and Sakura I knew that Lee meant well but treating me like an invalid… like I was helpless… it chafed. Besides Naruto the only other person I could stand to be around most days was Gaara. At least he didn't hover.

Naruto's and my room was just down the hall from Lee and Gaara's and once I was inside I closed the door as quietly as I could. The room was completely dark when I entered, the curtains drawn on every window. With the afternoon sun fading outside, there wasn't much light peaking in from around the curtains so I walked to the kotatsu where the mikos had left a few candles for us and set the crutches down so I could bend over and light them.

Once that was done, I shed the heavy winter kimono, tightened the sash on the yukata I'd been wearing underneath and hopped over towards the bedroom. The door was open and I could see Naruto starfished under the blankets in the dim light, snoring lightly. I smiled in spite of myself and my bad mood vanished almost instantly. He was the reason so many good (and annoying) things had happened to me; the reason there were so many people in my life now who honestly cared about me.

I hopped over to my side of the futon and carefully sat down on the end so that I could watch him sleep. At the beginning of our … confinement here Naruto and I had had some spectacular fights about what I should or shouldn't be allowed to do, or about how much privacy I should have because goddess forbid I should go to the toilet on my own. We'd fought about a lot of other things that mostly had to do with how worried he was about me after almost losing me and how much I wanted to be better already and not need a babysitter or a shadow at my back waiting to see if I tripped over my own feet.

In the end it took a couple weeks before we managed to figure out a system that we were both comfortable with, especially once we realized that I didn't need his constant protection here. Naruto stuck with me most of the time because that wasn't something we could change but he started taking naps during the day so that I could have an hour or so to myself and he could recover from the constant drain on his chakra. When we were together he didn't nag me about the little things as long as I promised to ask for help if I needed it, which had been hard but it wouldn't be fair to say that the compromise wasn't hard for him either. And when the heck had I become so reasonable?

I sighed and bent over my broken leg to remove the immobilizer. Tsunade would have a fit if she knew I wasn't sleeping with it but it was bulky and uncomfortable and I was never good at following other people's orders anyway. Once it was off I looked back at Naruto and jumped when I saw that he was watching me. He gave me a sleepy smirk, "Did I scare ya?"

"Like hell," I said, looking away while smoothing my yukata down. I felt him sit up and wrap his arms around me… before yawning right next my ear. "Argh c'mon, do you have to do that right there?"

He chuckled and nuzzled his nose against my neck. "But I can't help it. I'm sleepy and you're right there, looking all cuddly and sexy…" I could feel him grinning against my neck.

I felt the heat rising in my skin and looked off at some dimly lit corner of the room, "One of these days you'll open your mouth and the words that come out will actually make sense." I muttered quietly but apparently not quietly enough.

Naruto turned me around and pushed my back onto the futon before he lowered his lips to mine in a firm kiss. "I always make sense, Sasuke." He said pulling back only slightly. When I just looked at him and didn't bother arguing he smiled and rubbed his cheek against mine. "What did Shizune say about your leg?" he asked softly.

"No change." I said, my heart rate picking up, "Still broken, still poisoned."

Naruto made an angry snort and sat up slightly. I could immediately see how frustrated he was with the news so I quickly changed the subject, "Lee had your necklace." He blinked in surprise and refocused on me. "He forgot about it and found it again today." I made a face and continued in order to fulfill my promise, "He also told me to pass on his apology…"

Naruto's face went from excited to dismissive and waved away the apology like I knew he would. "Lee's way too polite. So did he give it to you?" he asked eagerly.

"Yeah it's in the pocket of my kimo…"

"I'll get it!" he yelled and practically flew off the futon into the other room. I blinked and sat up watching him rummage through the pockets of my discarded kimono until he found it. His face broke out into one of the widest grins I'd ever seen him make as he clutched it in his hand and brought it back into our bedroom. He sat beside me on the futon and inspected it carefully; the three stones and the thin leather rope that tied off at the end still the same as he'd left it. "I thought I'd lost it."

"And now you have it back." It was a throw away comment that I didn't expect him to react to with more than a smile or a nod but the look he gave me was careful and considerate.

He stared at me long enough that I was about to ask him what was wrong when he nodded to himself almost imperceptively and looked back down at the necklace. "There're two precious things I thought I'd lost that came back to me." He untied the end of the necklace and before I could react he reached around my neck and tied the ends back. "And now they're both together."

I looked down at the necklace, surprised. "This is yours. You don't have to do this."

Naruto was adjusting the necklace unnecessarily and smiled at me, "I want to."

I raised an eyebrow, "Won't Tsunade be mad?"

He raised one right back, "The old lady will get over it. It's not like it's hers anymore."

I snorted a laugh before I could hold it back but I blinked when Naruto didn't say anything else and my humor died away the more I paid attention to what Naruto was doing. He was still fingering the necklace but the end of one finger had hooked around the collar of my yukata. It tugged slightly, the collar opening with it until the necklace dropped from the fabric and fell onto my skin.

He started to trace the skin around the necklace with his finger and I shivered. Naruto seemed pleased with my reaction because he pulled his finger away and replaced it with his mouth. His lips traced the light touches his fingers had made, warm puffs of breath against my skin preceding soft kisses. His kisses followed the line of the leather rope up to my neck where they went from feather light to long and lingering. I felt a hand settle on my waist and another rise up to hold the other side of my neck as Naruto traced small fangs against the curse mark. A spot on my skin I'd once hated, he had turned into a place that I craved to be touched.

I let go a small breath of air and clutched his yukata tightly because that was it wasn't it? He made a lot of the self-hatred I hadn't even known I'd harbored completely disappear. He made me see myself in new light. He didn't judge me or tell me I was broken or _wrong_ for being who I was. He just loved me… and I loved him back. "Hmm?" he asked, nibbling at my ear.

I must've whispered it so I smiled and said it louder, "I love you."

He froze.

I was disappointed when he pulled back but the look on his face was worth it, "I… really?" His eyes were rapidly turning back to the red of his emotional state.

My smile was still there, soft, subdued, and only for him. "Yeah."

"I mean, I thought I'd felt something from you but… and I didn't want to jump to conclusions…" he was getting worked up and I could see the red on his cheeks even through the soft candlelight. I decided to take matters into my own hands before he could say anything else. I used my grip on his yukata to pull him closer and crashed my lips onto his in a fierce kiss. It took a minute for him to respond but when he did he was all eagerness and enthusiasm.

Raising a hand to the back of my head he kissed me back hard. Parting my lips with his tongue he plunged it into my mouth, tilting his head to the side to seal the kiss. Before I knew it I was on my back again with Naruto on top of me, my good leg between both of his. I raised my arms up around him and began tugging at his yukata, pulling it down around his shoulders so I could feel his skin against my hands.

Naruto growled and pulled away from the kiss to sit up and remove the offending piece of clothing until he was left with just his underwear. He looked down at me for a moment with such heat in his eyes that I could feel his gaze like a living thing on my skin. It sent shocks down my body that I could feel all the way to my toes. I brought a hand to my chest unconsciously, tracing it up from where the necklace still sat all the way up to my neck as though I could catch the spark of his gaze in my hand.

Naruto followed my hand with that hungry gaze and replaced my hand with his. Slowly, he trailed only his fingertips down my chest and I shuddered even as his touch ran over cloth and came to a stop at the sash that kept my yukata closed. He looked at me, asking. We'd gone this far before, losing our clothes until we were almost completely naked in each other's arms. This was not new and I knew instinctively what he was really asking for. I nodded. I wanted this with him. I wanted everything with him.

Naruto didn't waste any time. He undid the sash, opening the yukata and barely left me a moment to pull my arms out of the sleeves before he bent down and began trailing wet kisses down my chest. I moaned, the sound escaping against my will and I huffed in frustration. Distracted for a moment, I almost didn't notice when Naruto rose up and smiled against my ear, "C'mon, Sasuke. Don't hold back." His voice was throaty and rough, "I want to hear you." He didn't even give me the opportunity to curse him out.

Naruto bent back down and took my right nipple into his mouth. I gasped and looked down to watch as he swirled his tongue around it and bit it gently. My blood was on fire; I felt that fire rush through my veins and pool between my legs, hardening my arousal almost too quickly to be comfortable.

My hands clutched at his shoulders as he moved from one nipple to the other and gave it similar treatment. I heard myself make a needy sound I will never admit to making under pain of death and gripped him tightly wanting more but not knowing how to ask. Naruto dropped a kiss just under the nipple before he looked up at me and asked, "What do you want, Sasuke?" There were a lot of emotions swirling about in Naruto's eyes but the one's that came through the most were passion and adoration. "Name it, and I'll give it to you."

"I… I don't …" I moved my hips in frustration. Part of me didn't know what to ask for, while the other part of me knew damn well what but was too embarrassed to ask for it.

Naruto grinned, the fangs showing a bit more the more he lost control. "Is it this?" Slowly, slow enough that I could stop him if I wanted to, Naruto trailed a hand down my chest, letting his nails graze my skin in ways that sent shivers down my spine.

That hand drew down my waist and over my briefs until it settled warm and heavy over my cock. I gasped and pushed my hips up into his hand, "Yes, yes please." I was beyond the ability to feel embarrassed, I just _wanted_ so badly.

Naruto kneaded his palm against my erection and I cried out, clutching him tighter and digging my nails into his skin. I felt him shudder above me and whisper my name against the skin of my abdomen before he lifted up slightly and reached with both hands to pull my underwear down my legs one at a time; even now mindful of my injury.

He tossed it aside and when he looked back at me I could just imagine what he saw: naked flushed skin, red kiss swollen lips, pupils blown wide swallowing up dark irises… the arousal between my legs just aching to be touched. Every inch of me was aching for his touch.

My legs spread invitingly, deliberately, and I grinned. "What are you waiting for, a written invitation?" I asked, my boldness coming from the raw desire I saw in Naruto's face as he watched me.

He huffed a small laugh but moved his mouth futilely, words escaping him, before he decided there were better things he could be doing with that mouth. Naruto settled himself on his belly between my legs and started dropping kisses around my belly button. I was a little ticklish there and started to squirm beneath him but he didn't linger. Bringing his arms up around my thighs he bent my legs at the knee slightly and caressed the skin with his hands while his mouth came achingly close to the base of my arousal. For a moment all I felt was his breath against my skin. Then he rose up and dipped his head to lick at the tip.

I hissed and felt my cock twitch. Naruto, who I could already tell was far more experienced than I was, bent his head around it and began licking from base to tip. It was exquisite and torturous at the same time. I was about yell at him to stop teasing me when he rose up one last time and took the head into his mouth. I had no conscious awareness of the sounds I was making anymore. All I knew was my death grip on the sheets as his tongue swirled around the head of my cock, as his head bobbed up and down, up and down, over and over. He took one of his hands away from my thighs and I felt it reach down and knead my balls just as Naruto brought his head back down all the way and moaned.

My back arched just as I shouted his name and I nearly came right there. "Stop, stop." I begged. There were tears in my eyes and my body trembled under his careful attentions. Naruto pulled his hand away but took his time lifting his mouth off my member, sucking as he did so that it came off with an obscene pop that nearly brought the edge of orgasm right back. I was panting and shaking and _needed_ him. His glazed lust filled gaze barely registered the hand I reached out to him but I determinedly reached up behind his neck and dragged him up my body and to my lips for a bruising kiss.

Once his lips were on mine he seemed to wake from his daze and thrust his tongue against mine. He moaned into the kiss and I reached down to feel the wet spot over his erection on his underwear, knowing he'd been just as affected by what he'd done to me as I was. Eager to have the evidence of that in my hand I made a frustrated sound as I tried to tug his underwear down unsuccessfully and finally just reached inside and took him in my hand. Naruto uttered a muffled cry against my lips and I took that for the encouragement it was.

I gripped his cock firmly and began to explore it with my fingers, learning him through touch. My thumb came up around the head and teased at the slit, gathering up the fluid leaking out and trailing it down the underside of the shaft. He shuddered above me and pulled away from me only long enough to slide his underwear down his legs before he was on me again, mouth on mine, tongue warring against my own and memorizing every inch of my mouth.

Oh but this was so much better because now his fully naked body was resting on top of mine, skin to skin and being nearly the same height meant I could feel his erection pressed just against the juncture where thigh met hip. I moved my hips slightly, eager to feel him against me and it was just what we needed. His gasp broke the kiss and he made an involuntary thrust that sent a pleasurable shock through me; one that I felt all the way down to my fingertips. "Oh my god," he breathed, face lowered against my neck.

I wholeheartedly agreed, "Do that again." I got out between panting gasps.

He complied and not much was said after that. He began slowly, both of us too close to the edge to take it any faster. I kissed any part of him I could reach, whispering my love into his ear and felt my chest grow tight every time he whispered it back. His thrusts soon picked up pace and I threw my good leg around his hips in encouragement. Every thrust rubbed his hard cock against my own, the fluids leaking out becoming an impromptu lubricant. It was shock and after shock of pleasure with every rocking motion and I gasped and cried and shouted and begged for more.

Naruto's skin felt like it was on fire. The heat of it wrapped around me, burning me, looking for a way in. Naruto bit my shoulder to stifle an animalistic growl and I felt the heat entering me, riding my pleasure, intensifying it to a white hot burn that I thought would consume me from within. "Naru…" I gasped as his hips sped up, rocking me bodily against the futon when his cock accidently slipped down passed my balls and touched briefly against my entrance. I whimpered with want as he stopped and reached down to adjust himself, making sure that our arousals rubbed together against our bellies once he started his thrusts again.

The strange burn was everywhere inside me shooting through me like waves of liquid lava, the strength of it encouraged by the shocks of pleasure that came with every thrust of Naruto's hips against mine. I couldn't make myself care what it was, I was at a precipice and needed that one last push. Naruto seemed to read my mind because he brought a finger to my lips and I instantly took it into my mouth, sucking on it and rolling my tongue around it. Naruto moaned and drew it out. He reached down with that hand, brushed against my balls, down the skin of my perineum and teased my entrance with that finger. "Please…" I gasped and he pushed inside.

I threw my head back and cried out, come splashing from the head of my cock in long spurts up my chest and neck, droplets hitting my chin. The strange heat that had possessed me exploded inside of me right on the heels of my orgasm, prolonging it and intensifying it until all I could do was lay there and tremble in the aftershocks. Watching me orgasm was what did it for Naruto because a couple more thrusts and I saw him open his mouth in a silent scream as he came, spilling his seed between us to mix with my own.

Naruto collapsed on top of me, panting against my neck and smearing come against our skin but I couldn't have cared less. I reached up shaky arms to wrap around him and hold him against me. "It might be the fantastic orgasm talking," he got out between gasps of air, "but I don't think I've loved anyone more."

I laughed and held him tighter. "Same," I said back and he chuckled.

After a couple minutes Naruto lifted himself up and gave me the gentlest most love-struck smile I'd ever seen him make. It made my heart flutter. "It wasn't the orgasm talking." He bent down to kiss my forehead, the tip of my nose, and then placed the sweetest kiss against my lips.

When he lifted his head again to look at me I brought a hand up to caress his cheek and watched as he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. "Same," I breathed, suddenly overwhelmed by how unbelievably happy I was. I was in love and I could feel that love expanding inside my chest and filling up all of the empty spaces where the cold and the darkness had haunted me until now.

Naruto shifted so that he could kiss the palm of my hand and I felt my eyes sting. I looked away from him but before I could drop my hand he brought his own up to cup mine against his face. When I pulled my gaze back to him he was looking at me like I was the most precious thing in the world and I felt my throat tighten up. "I love you," he said a voice he rarely ever used. It was solemn, serious, intense, like he needed me to know that those words held the weight of something sacred. I was powerless to do anything but look at him and say the words back in the same tone. It felt like a promise.

As hard as I fought them I felt the tears slide down my face toward my ears. But I was surprised when I wasn't embarrassed and I knew then that it was because I trusted Naruto with everything I was. I trusted him enough to be vulnerable in front of him and know that all he would do would be to love me more. As if to prove me right he bent down and kissed the tear tracks near my eyes. I sighed softly wishing we weren't such a mess so that we could share this moment longer but I glanced down at our chests and cringed.

Naruto followed my gaze and snorted a short laugh, "I guess we could use a shower."

Something pulled his gaze further down my body and he froze. "What?" I asked, using my elbows to prop myself up. That's when I saw that the bandages around my broken leg lay in half burned tatters beneath it. The demon sight that I'd been sporting for a few minutes now zeroed in on the ankle and I could no longer see the purple aura of the poison in my blood. The swelling was completely gone, the aura was a mixture of my own and Naruto's. Even free of the bandages the leg didn't hurt at all. I pulled the knee to my chest and touched the spot where I'd been bitten, feeling my leg all the way up to my calf. "It's gone." I said shocked.

We looked at my leg in stunned silence for a moment until suddenly the words came back to me unbidden just as Naruto said them aloud, "Didn't your improv go something like: '…share with me the strength of your eternity as I offer up the mortality of my flesh.'?"

I looked at him incredulously even though I'd been thinking the same thing, "Are you trying to imply that if I ever get injured again…"

"We should have sex to make it go away." Naruto finished with a rapidly widening grin. I froze for a couple seconds with my hand half way up my shoulder to the spot where Naruto had bitten me, thinking about that strange heat that had possessed me right before I came. Then I made a face and shoved Naruto off me, "hey!"

I sat up and got to my feet carefully, relying on my good leg the way I'd been doing for a month now. Experimentally, I slowly eased the other foot down on the ground. Naruto was at my elbow right away, watching. I leaned my weight on it … and nothing happened. It was as if I'd never been hurt in the first place. Naruto took a step forward with a shit-eating grin on his face and whispered into my ear, "My dick healed you Sasuke." I felt no guilt when I kicked him behind the knees and he fell back down onto the futon.

He didn't even bitch, he just laid there and laughed his ass off. "The wording in the spell healed me, Naruto." I said, indignantly. He ignored me. I sighed and rolled my eyes heavenward. "Fine," I smirked as I took the first few careful steps toward the bathroom. "I guess I'm showering alone."

I heard him scramble off the futon just as I slid the door to the bathroom open. "Whoa, Sasuke. Wait up!"

00000

Five Weeks Later

After that first time it became a regular thing. There wasn't much to do at the temple besides sit and wait for news so there were many opportunities for us to be alone. A day like today: lazy, quiet and overcast meant we hadn't been bothered since the morning… and hadn't left the room all day.

Sitting on the futon I nibbled at a spot on Naruto's neck and felt the shiver it produced against my naked skin. I leaned forward against him, pressing the stones of the necklace I still wore between us and wrapped my arms around him, basking in his warmth. He reached down with his free hand and grabbed my ass for a moment, caressing the skin, before he tightened his grip and pulled my hips closer.

I adjusted myself on his lap and whispered in his ear, "Stop making me wait." Naruto grunted and pulled his other hand away from the container of massage oil. He spread me open with his clean hand and I felt his oiled fingers slide down between my cheeks to tease at my entrance. I moaned and pushed back against him but all he did was circle his finger along the sensitive ring. I made an impatient noise and bit his ear; I swear he did that just to frustrate me.

Naruto made a half chuckle deep in his throat and pushed in with the first finger. I gasped and rocked against him, hoping for some friction, but he stilled me with a hand on my hip and planted a kiss against my collarbone. I obliged him and stayed still as he continued to drop kisses along my shoulder and pushed in deep with his finger. Staying still was the hardest because all I wanted was to rock back onto that finger. Naruto moved his finger in and out slowly before pulling out completely and adding a second finger. I breathed out through pursed lips and relaxed my muscles to let him slide his fingers inside without too much resistance.

As soon as I felt his fingers scissoring and stretching me I leaned back by an inch in order to capture Naruto's mouth with mine. I put everything I felt for him into that kiss and heard him moan in response. It sent a shudder through me to know that he could feel how much I loved him in ways no one else ever could; that what we had was truly unique. The kiss was deep but gentle and I felt a small wetness against his cheek when I brought my hand to touch it. I broke the kiss as he pulled his fingers out and rested his forehead against mine. "I know Sasuke," he said, taking my hips and raising them up, "me too."

I watched him dip his fingers back into the massage oil and slick himself up with the lubricant. The sight and the anticipation alone threatened to unravel me so I reached down with one of my hands to line his hard cock against my entrance, still impatient, still needing him, and slowly lowered myself onto it. Gritting my teeth against the stretch I moved my hands to his shoulders for support and inched my way down until I was fully seated on his lap. I closed my eyes and breathed carefully trying to adjust to his size. Naruto on the other hand had dropped his forehead to my shoulder and was whispering small endearments while his fingers clutched tightly at my waist.

I let go of a small breath and wriggled my hips experimentally, intentionally grinding my ass against the soft skin of his balls. Naruto gasped and uttered a whispered curse that made me smile. Carefully, I lifted myself up with my legs until just the head of his dick was still in me and I slowly dropped myself back down until he filled me completely once more. "_Sasuke…_" My name whispered so breathlessly against my skin and filled with so much want sent a pleasurable shock through me that had me rushing to fulfill the unspoken request.

I lifted myself up again and dropped down onto his cock faster than I had before. Naruto made a small desperate, needy sound. Eager to hear more of that sound I rose up and slid back down onto his shaft again, beginning a rhythm that soon had me bouncing up and down on his lap. I braced myself on his shoulders while he began to help me, lifting me up at the waist with his hands as I rose up but letting me drop back down on my own. For several minutes the slap of skin on skin as I came down on his thighs was the only sound in the room between our quiet gasps. I threw my head back when his hands on me moved my hips and changed the angle of his cock inside me, hitting that one amazing spot that caused me to cry out.

"Yes, more!" I gasped out and a low growl told me my lover was more than happy to meet my request. I slammed back down onto his lap but before I could move again Naruto wrapped his arms around me and held me there. I let out a small sound of protest but before I could say anything I felt him move his hands to wrap around my thighs. He shifted beneath us and all of a sudden got to his feet holding me up with his arms, his cock still inside me. I quickly wrapped my legs around his waist to keep us stable and two seconds later Naruto had me shoved up against the wall. Naruto inched his hands back to my ass and spread my cheeks apart to feel where we were both connected with his fingers.

"You're so sexy, Sasuke." He breathed against my neck, licking at a spot near the curse mark.

"Okay that's nice, you can start moving anytime now." I said and squeezed at the base of his cock. His chuckle at my response was interrupted with a hiss as my muscles tightened around him and I smirked against his ear.

"F-fine…" he said and I heard the smile in his voice, "you want it, you got it." He adjusted his hands to get a better grip on me and pressed me against the wall with his body before he began to thrust. It was a slow drag out and back in for a few moments, just to be sure we had the angle right before Naruto began to thrust in earnest. After that all I could do was hang on tight as Naruto rocked deep into me with his hard cock and brushed against that spot inside me that drove me out of my mind. Every thrust pushed me higher and higher with Naruto getting wilder the longer it went on.

My mouth fell open with the intent to speak but I couldn't force the words out. To ask, to beg, for him to go harder, deeper, faster but he didn't need to hear it to know. I could feel every inch of him as he filled me with each thrust and was so wrapped up in the sensation that I didn't realize he'd grabbed my hand until I felt him wrap it around my own hardness. I blinked and looked at him curiously. He raised half lidded eyes to me, the lust and the love in them clear for me to see until a smirk tugged at his lips and he said, "Touch yourself Sasuke."

The words went straight to my groin and I whimpered, squeezing at the base of my own arousal to keep my orgasm at bay. No easy task when Naruto was busy shoving his cock into me with reckless abandon. He bit my shoulder gently and brought his hand back to encircle mine. "No Sasuke," he said slowing down before thrusting against me hard enough to make me cry out, "like this." He tightened his hand on mine and pulled my hand up and down fast, not working me up to a speed like I had expected. It was too much. Except for a few shaky breaths I didn't make any noise when I finally came. A powerful shudder wracked through my whole body and I spilled come over both of our hands, gasping and holding him tight.

I squeezed down hard on him when my orgasm hit, just as he was thrusting back inside me and Naruto groaned out my name against my shoulder. He went still, his cock deep inside me and I could feel him filling me up with his warm come. We were both panting by the end, my thighs shaking slightly around his waist and Naruto leaving a trail of kisses along my neck in between breaths. After a minute he pulled me away from the wall and walked back to the futon, kneeling and then laying me down first before slowly pulling out and collapsing beside me.

Still trying to catch my breath but missing his warmth I leaned over and pressed my lips against his while tugging his arm over my chest. He quickly understood and smiled into the kiss while throwing a leg over mine and cuddling up against my side. Naruto dropped a few more kisses onto my lips before he pulled back and just looked at me. I blinked, "What?"

His smile widened, "Nothing, just thinking about how lucky I am." I rolled my eyes and gave him a halfhearted shove. He chuckled and leaned down to plant another kiss on my jaw. "You make me really happy Sasuke."

I watched him tuck his head under my chin and I bit my bottom lip, thinking about that. I could honestly not remember a time when I had been happier than I was now. I'd made strong connections with good people, I had a boyfriend who loved me and who I loved back, and soon my father would no longer be around to threaten that happiness. As much as a part of me still felt guilt for being relieved at the thought of his approaching death, all I had to do was remember our last meeting in order to sooth that guilt.

I gripped Naruto tighter and he hummed happily, "Are we going to go out and find some chow?"

I sighed and smiled a bit, "I think I'd rather stay here a while."

I felt the happy flutter along his chakra and he reached over with his hand and grabbed one of mine. "Sounds good to me." It wasn't long before we were both asleep.

00000

I woke up some time later to find that Naruto had rolled over and curled himself around his pillow. I was staring at his back with bleary, sleep filled eyes when I yawned and sat up. We'd never pulled the sheets up so they sat in a bundle at our feet but even without them I didn't feel cold. The demon chakra inside me was keeping me warm. I looked at Naruto again and decided I'd get up and take a walk before I woke him. Standing up, I walked quietly over to our bathroom and shut the door so that the light and the noise wouldn't bother him.

Once I got the hot water running I stepped in and quickly washed away all the stickiness from my body. Once I was done I stayed under the spray for a few more minutes just enjoying the way the hot water relaxed me until my stomach rumbled. I sighed and decided it was time Naruto and I ate something. Stepping out of the shower I dried myself off and went back into our room to slip into a fresh yukata. Glancing at Naruto one last time I silently promised to come back with something to eat. I grabbed my socks and the heavier tanzen kimono and left the room.

The hallway of the guest house was a little colder so I took a moment to slip my socks on before heading the rest of the way to the back door. My borrowed sandals were waiting for me at the back entrance and I got into them as I slipped the kimono on over my shoulders, tying the sash as I opened the door. It was a lot colder outside than I had expected but I suppose that with it being a week into December it shouldn't have surprised me so much. Another small smile tugged at my lips as I thought that spending lazy days warm indoors with my lover was distorting my sense of time.

I adjusted the kimono a bit as I walked down the covered walkway toward the temple. It was snowing soft lazy flakes that drifted to the ground slowly without a breath of wind to pick them up. Halfway down the walkway I noticed a flash of red against the white of the snow covered garden and stopped. A red fox peeked out from behind a mound of snow from about five feet away. It stared at me for a moment before it ran out and hopped up onto the railing right next to me. I took a step back in surprise but stopped when I noticed it had a small leather pouch in its mouth. It bobbed its head at me and I don't know what prompted me to do it but I tentatively reached out for the pouch, hyperaware of how close my hand was to its teeth. As soon as I touched it the fox let it go and jumped off the rail. I almost dropped it but caught it with both hands before it fell and when I looked up, the fox was gone.

"What the…" I looked down at the pouch. It was very small, smaller than the palm of my hand. The pouch was made of soft leather and the string that tied it off… was made of very familiar tri-color braided hair. My heart jumped and I raced off to the temple to find a priestess who could tell me what this meant.

Ten minutes later and I'd found absolutely no one. I was starting to get a little creeped out. Usually there were mikos everywhere. Where had everybody gone?! "Screw it," I muttered under my breath and started checking places I was usually asked not to go. First stop was the temple front entrance where visitors tended to congregate. It was completely empty save for one person, "Ino!"

Ino was sweeping the lobby and she looked up in surprise when I ran up to her, "Sasuke? What are you doing here? What if someone comes…"

"Ino," I said, interrupting her. "I was on the walkway when a fox gave me this." I held up the pouch for her to see.

She blinked at it in surprise and gasped when she caught sight of the string, "It's a gift from the goddess!" She said in hushed and awed tones. "Have you opened it?"

"No," I said, looking for a spot where the string was tied off. "I thought one of you should see it first."

She nodded, "Go ahead and open it, you'll know when you see it if it's for your eyes only."

I tugged at the tie until it loosened and opened the pouch to find… rice? I frowned slightly and dug my finger into it but there was nothing else in the pouch except uncooked short grain rice. "Its rice," I said, surprised. "Why would the goddess give me rice?" Why would the goddess give me anything? I was pretty sure I wasn't one of her favorite people.

Ino took a step closer and peered inside the pouch, confusion clouding her features. "That _is_ strange. This is not a traditional omen. Rice is usually an offering given _to_ the goddess not the other way around." She looked at me again, her eyes now worried, "This doesn't feel right. Did you see anything else unusual when this happened? Anything you might consider… ominous?"

That sent a chill up my spine, "Ino, why is there no one in the temple right now?"

She frowned, "They're all here, the mikos are gathered in one of the back rooms helping Shizune prepare a spell. Tsunade said she had one more idea for getting information out of the snake but it would take a lot of power. I suppose the gloves are off now." She said with a small smirk, "In fact, Tsunade and her… captive should be here soon." She said looking out through the open double doors that led to the empty parking lot.

"Why aren't you with them then?" I asked, tying the pouch back up and slipping it into my pocket. I hadn't seen much of Ino during my stay here but I remembered our first meeting very clearly and I knew from the way the other mikos treated her just how powerful she was.

"Someone has to be here in case we get visitors. Besides, I'm a medium. They don't need my talents for the kind of spell they're working on."

"What…" I stopped when I heard a noise outside. Ino turned her head to the front, also having heard it. There was a crunch of snow on gravel that could only be from footfalls but we hadn't heard any cars pull up.

"Tsunade?" Ino called, taking a step toward the entrance. No reply. I caught a brief glimpse of a man's shadow through the doors before Ino quickly shoved herself into me bodily and I tripped and fell straight into an open broom closet that she then slid closed before I could get back up.

I staggered to my feet in the darkness, cursing under my breath and was about to fling open the door, random visitor be damned when I heard their voices and stopped.

"Good afternoon, honorable visitor. May I help you find a good luck charm for friend or family?" Ino said gently, without any trace of nervousness or tension.

But it was the reply that made my blood run cold. "No," The man's voice said, "it's not good luck charms that I came here looking for."

The sliding door was solid wood, no panels, so I placed my fingertips on the spot where door met wall and slowly inched it open just a crack. Through that crack I saw my father standing in front of Ino, dressed in one of his tailored suits as though he'd just stepped out of the office. He was alone and looking at her with a strange confidence. Like a man who's won his battle before it even began and was ready to collect his prize. The rage I felt at that got Naruto's chakra roiling within me but I hastily quieted it down. If Naruto sensed something was wrong he'd wake up and come bursting in, ruining our cover. I don't know how my father found me but this didn't need to get ugly if Ino could turn him away.

"In fact," Fugaku continued, "I'm here for a guest of yours. You see…"

"I'm afraid we don't have any guests at the moment." Ino said pleasantly, as though she hadn't cut my father off.

"Is that so?" My father said, the smile on his face slipping with the lack of patience that defined him so well.

"Yes, it seems that a previous guest who came here for healing didn't tell us she was suffering from meningitis until she left. The guest house and the miko's who tended to her have been quarantined by the local health department until further notice." Ino's face was sad and entirely sincere and I could barely contain the smile on my face. A story like that would not only turn people away but prevent them from snooping around or trying to get inside.

A muscle above my father's eye twitched and he took a few steps closer to her. "I must admit, I wasn't expecting that the people of this temple would be helping him hide. Especially when it means they would be party to kidnapping as he is just sixteen. However, I promise that if you go get Sasuke now I will not press charges."

I could tell Ino was breathing a little faster, her face was neutral but her nerves were starting to show. There was something wrong here; I was picking up on it and I knew she must've as well. We had been very careful not to let anyone see us for my father to be so confident. I took a deep breath and carefully summoned my demon sight while trying to keep the rest of Naruto's nervous chakra at bay.

The curse in my father looked like a sickly gray fog under his skin. He looked diseased, half dead; it showed in the whites of his eyes and permeated his stunted aura as though it was suffocating it. I noticed all of this before I pinpointed what was really wrong. The curse was spreading like a terminal illness because it wasn't contained anymore by demonic protection. My father hadn't bound another demon to himself after I killed Tobi… how the hell was he still alive?!

Ino cleared her throat nervously but her poker face was flawless, "There is no one here by that name. I'm sorry but I cannot help you. I'm afraid I will have to ask you to leave now."

I watched Fugaku pinch the bridge of his nose and mutter, "I don't have time for this." He looked back up after a moment and reached inside his jacket pocket. It took only a few seconds but I watched as in those seconds he pulled out the handle of a knife. The blade shot out from its sheath just as he grabbed Ino by her clothes and pulled her against his chest, shoving the knife under her throat and startling her cry for help quiet.

I didn't even think. I burst out of the closet and got a few feet on my father before he turned toward me and smiled. "Let her go!" What a dumbass! I could kick myself right about that moment. I was weaponless and alone and right about then I decided there was nothing to it. I let Naruto's frantic chakra go and waited.

My father grinned triumphantly, "Sasuke, you look good for a dead man."

"So do you." I said tensely. "This isn't a family reunion so why don't you just let her go. We both know it's me you're here for."

At that moment I was blasted in the face with hot air warmed by pure chakra as Naruto appeared beside me barefoot and dressed only in a thin yukata. It didn't deter at all from the pissed off look in his face when he saw my father holding a knife to Ino's throat.

My father's eyes darted to Naruto calmly and he began to take a few steps back, pulling Ino with him. "No, I think I'll hold onto her. A man can never have too much leverage."

Fugaku kept creeping towards the exit with us following at a careful distance when I heard Naruto whisper Gaara's name. Barely seconds later there was a flurry of sand and Gaara was between my father and the exit. Fugaku turned sideways to keep all three of us within his sight, "You, redhead, you're going to get out of my way or your lady friend will be the one who suffers." He said, bringing the knife in closer to her neck. I angrily thought that he couldn't possibly be more clichéd if he tried.

Gaara made a noise not unlike a growl and slowly stepped away from the doors while Fugaku quickly pulled Ino out of the temple and into the empty parking lot. We followed him out slowly and I could see immediately why we hadn't heard any cars pull in. There was a car but it was sitting outside the torii gate, outside temple grounds, and there was a man with white hair standing next to it. He was careful not to come too close to the gate and if that didn't scream demon then his bright and fiery aura would've been a dead giveaway.

"Let her go," Naruto said, a warning in his voice.

Fugaku barked out a laugh, "You don't seem to understand who has the upper hand here." He was pulling Ino quickly toward the gate. In that moment she slipped in the snow but he was quick to catch her and keep dragging her backwards. "Finding this place wasn't easy Sasuke, your friends hid you well." Ino's breaths were coming short and quick but she kept herself outwardly calm even though I could see the fear in her eyes. "Not that you were my priority. I nearly had to start over you see, to try breaking the curse from another angle once I found out you'd changed the spell to make yourself immortal."

He nearly had her to the gate and I think all of us knew that we couldn't let him go through. Gaara reacted first. He swung a hand out and a wave of sand shot out from within the temple and made for them with incredible speed. It stopped in midair when a scream ripped through the quiet of the windless evening. Fugaku had cut into Ino's neck and she screamed again when his hand jerked a second time. My hands fisted tight at my sides in anger when I saw blood run down her throat from the wound. "That sand touches me and she dies." He said gravely.

I heard several footsteps behind me and knew more people from within the temple were catching up to us. Gaara stared back at my father darkly and slowly retracted the sand, pulling it back to him and into his clothes. A nervous but confident smile etched its way onto my father's face and he pulled Ino through the torii gate where his demon accomplice waited, finally able to protect him. "What are you doing here _father_." I spat out the last word derisively. "Why do I even matter to you anymore?"

"I'm here for more than just you, Sasuke." He sneered. "I had other priorities but since I was being sent here anyway I figured it was as good a time as any to pay him half my dues."

"Sent? Who… what are you talking about?!"

His grin was savage, "The only thing you're good for is currency Sasuke. You are half the price I pay to stay alive. In the mean time being completely human has its advantages, like being able to walk into a temple and take what I want."

"You're not taking anyone anywhere." Naruto muttered determinedly. "Not Ino, not Sasuke."

"It's not Sasuke he sent me for!" Fugaku screamed in rage. "It's the serpent he wants! Sasuke…" he seemed to calm a bit and I was beginning to feel as though my father had become completely unhinged, "Sasuke was just conveniently in the same place."

"The serpent..." Gaara repeated, awareness dawning on his face.

"I-it's not here." Ino said with a careful breath.

Fugaku jerked her and readjusted the knife, "You will be silent!"

He looked back at us, "We've been watching you. That's how I knew both you and the snake were here." Fugaku's eyes darted down the road and that's when I heard a car approaching. Please let it be the cops... "There are a lot of temples in the area, even more on this mountain. _He_ knew that snake was here somewhere; that Shinto magic was the only thing that could've kept him away. He interrupted my research and my search for you and sent me here to find him." He grinned, even as the approaching car slowed to a stop a couple yards behind his own car. Fugaku ignored it. "I ended up with more than I expected. So now, you're going to go back inside and bring me the snake."

"Think again." I saw him turn to watch Tsunade get out of her car and felt a smile tugging at my face. Better than the cops.

Tsunade looked about ready to commit bloody murder. She started walking up the road towards him and the demon at his side broke off to meet her. His hands flexed and I saw blades of pure chakra appear gripped between his fingers. He didn't waste time. As soon as he had them he flung them at Tsunade who dodged all of them, ran up and punched him in the stomach. The sound of his breath leaving him was audible even from where I stood. He bent over double and fell to the ground coughing and gasping for air.

My father was stunned and to be honest, so was I. I hadn't known what Tsunade was capable of. She began a slow walk towards my father, "You'll be letting her go now, or I won't be so gentle with you."

Fugaku was backing up a few steps, digging the knife into Ino's throat but before he could say anything another voice startled all of us back to Tsunade's car. "Oh you can be as gentle as you like Tsunade, I got what I came for."

It was a man with long black hair who had the palest skin I'd ever seen. He was pulling a pet carrier from the back seat of her car. Tsunade turned with wide eyes and gasped, "No… no, you're dead."

He grinned but his hand began to smoke where it touched the handle of the pet carrier and he was forced to set it down on the ground. He pulled the blanket off the cage and if I hadn't already known Manda was inside I could see him now, asleep through the plastic slats.

"Impossible…" Tsunade was shaking her head in disbelief and then all of a sudden her eyes darted between him and snake then shot back to Naruto and I and I began to see the horrible connection she was making. "Manda is your bound demon. That's how you… no… No!"

Tsunade didn't waste any more time thinking about it. She bent down, dug her fingers into the snow and tore a piece of asphalt straight out of the ground. She brought it up and threw it with uncanny speed, flying towards the man like some deadly frisbee. He didn't move out of the way. Seconds before it would've hit him he grabbed the cage again through the blanket and lifted it in front of him. The chunk of asphalt hit the pet carrier with enough force that it went through the plastic, lodged itself inside and sent the man staggering back a few steps.

He chuckled darkly from behind the cage and set it down so that he could yank the chunk of asphalt out, leaving behind a large hole. "Thank you for saving me the trouble of reaching my human hands," he said indicating Fugaku, "as they are busy at the moment."

Tsunade stood there shocked and watched him as he turned the cage over and Manda's small body fell through the hole and onto the road at his feet. He tossed the pet carrier aside and the smile that curled itself onto his features sent a shiver down my spine. "Manda," he said to the snake stirring at his feet, "get up."

Manda startled to full wakefulness and released a hiss that sounded equal parts relief and anger. He flexed his body and grew to twice the size of a large python, coiling himself around the pale man as he did. "_They kept me from returning. They tortured me_." He hissed menacingly in our direction, "_Let me repay them_."

My eyes widened, "I… am I hearing him in my head?!" I whispered to Naruto next to me. He nodded slowly, inching closer to me and not taking his eyes off them.

I watched the man caress Manda's scaly skin and reply, "All in due time."

"Orochimaru," Tsunade's composure was returning. She looked at him with complete disgust and I could see at least part of the reason why. My demon sight showed me his black aura but unlike Tobi's it didn't shimmer with sparks of vitality like all auras do. His aura … it was a slow, churning black mass. If it were possible to coat chakra in a layer of black tar, that would be it. "I see you found the immortality you were searching for."

"Not quite," he said, his eyes finding mine. "But I'm nearly there." Manda uncoiled himself to let Orochimaru walk towards Tsunade and my father. "I see that you've been blessed by the goddess since the last time we met. How many incarnations is this? Fourteen? Fifteen? Do you know how many hundreds of years you've missed out on?" He stopped in front of her and reached out to touch her face, "It's not very efficient, is it? Feels more like giving in to mortality rather than conquering it."

She reached out and snatched his wrist before his hand could touch her face, "Don't you dare."

He looked at where her hand was touching his skin and his ever present smile distorted itself into an over-wide grin that should never been possible on a human face. She followed his gaze and I saw how the black goo of his aura seeped into and under her skin. Tsunade drew her hand back sharply but it was too late. The black tar was spreading, running slowly up her arm and turning her veins black beneath her skin as though it was in her blood. "What did you…" She started to tremble and fell to her knees.

"Tsunade!" Naruto screamed. I reached out to grab him from behind before he could run through the gate for her. "Let me go!" he snarled over his shoulder. I was so surprised that I almost did.

"Naruto calm down for a sec," I said as quietly as I could. "We have to think…"

"Sasuke's right." Gaara said taking a few slow steps towards us. I saw Lee at his side and from the look on his face he'd been watching the show with us. "We need to be careful, as long as they have hostages, we're playing their game."

Naruto broke away from me and grabbed Gaara by his kimono, "It's not a game, damnit! We both know who they want!"

I was watching Orochimaru while Naruto and Gaara argued and saw him kneel down to where Tsunade was gripping her heaving chest. He was talking to her and I took a few steps closer in order to hear, "You spent a lot of time dead in-between your reincarnations. While you were busy rotting in the ground I spent that time trying to figure out how to keep all that power I was gaining. You know, without an angry goddess hunting me down because I was a priest using her divine power for… less than divine things."

He smiled like he'd made some kind of joke and Tsunade doubled over, coughing the black tar onto the street from her lungs. The black veins were on her throat, creeping up onto her face. "Tsunade…" I didn't even realize I'd said anything in my state of complete horror.

Orochimaru stuck his finger in the black stuff coloring the white snow in front of her knees and brought it up to her line of sight. "This is what I came up with. If I were poetic I'd say I pulled it out of my black black heart but actually, it was everywhere inside me. I turned it into a weapon, coated all my magic in it, blocked the goddess out. As you can see however," he said standing up, "it's not very compatible with other people."

"Let her go," I said only a couple feet from the gate.

Orochimaru turned his face to me, the smile genial and so full of crap I could barely stand to look at it. "Are you making an offer?"

Naruto grabbed me by the collar and hauled me back to him, "No fucking way." He said and gave me an incredulous look; like I was crazy.

I barely noticed it; I was too busy watching the smile slip from Orochimaru's face when he caught sight of Gaara. His snakelike eyes found Gaara's bracelet and they widened almost imperceptively. "Oh, but Tsunade isn't the only one here blessed by the goddess." He came closer to the gate and stood in Gaara's line of sight. After a moment he finally lifted his gaze from the bracelet to look Gaara in the face, "So the adoption finally worked on someone." He tilted his head, as though looking to see if he got any reaction out of Gaara. "I'm sure they told you… how this has never worked. Even I never expected…"

He straightened up and it was about then that I started to feel the strong desire to bash that grin straight into his ugly face. "I think I won't kill Tsunade," his eyes darted to me, "if you two are willing to make a trade."

"Fuck no!" Naruto looked offended by the mere suggestion. He looked ready to run out there and start kicking ass but… Ino would be dead before he crossed the gate and we had no idea what was happening to Tsunade let alone how to stop it.

"Sasuke-kun for Tsunade and you," Orochimaru said indicating Gaara, "for the priestess." Naruto took a few determined steps toward Gaara and started to whisper in his ear. I could see how tense Lee was beside him but from the look on his face, he couldn't hear anything either. "C'mon sand demon, you belong to Inari now. That means that you have an obligation to protect what is hers."

"Then why don't you take me instead? I belong to the goddess too." Naruto said, pulling

back with a sinister smile. The suggestion sent a thrill of fear down my spine even though I could see how confident he was. He thought he could put an end to this situation if he was allowed to walk through the gate.

Orochimaru's smile fell completely for the first time since he'd shown up, "No," he said, his eyes darting back to Gaara's bracelet, "him."

Both Naruto and Gaara were chakra powerhouses, Gaara only slightly less than Naruto and I could see in their eyes as they discussed their options in low tones how they were considering their next step. That's when I knew Gaara would say yes and if Orochimaru or any of the others gave even an inch of leeway, Gaara would kill them all.

Gaara pulled away from Naruto and nodded to Orochimaru. "Okay, me for the priestess."

"What?!" Lee grabbed Gaara's wrist in a vice-like grip but before Lee could shout any more objections Gaara pulled him close and whispered into his ear. They clearly had a plan but when I looked back through the gate I saw Orochimaru crouching to speak to Manda in low tones as well.

We were playing a game of chess and what set my nerves on edge was not knowing, in spite of the hostages, who really had the advantage.

Gaara straightened and Lee reluctantly pealed his fingers away. He took a small step away from Lee and returned his gaze to Orochimaru, "the girl first."

"Only once you're on the other side of the gate." Replied the fallen priest.

Gaara glanced back once to Naruto who nodded, they'd anticipated this. I wanted badly to ask Naruto what the plan was but I didn't want to put it in jeopardy by speaking it aloud again. So tense with anticipation, I watched Gaara cross the torii gate and stop directly in front of Orochimaru, "The girl."

He smiled and without moving his gaze away from Gaara, he said, "Uchiha-san."

Fugaku looked at the both of them nervously, shaking his head. "No… the red-head was not part of the plan. I'm trading her for Sasuke, not him!"

Orochimaru finally broke eye contact with Gaara and passed a loaded look onto the demon with white hair, "Kabuto, if you don't mind..."

Kabuto had gotten back up a few minutes ago, holding his stomach and watching the proceedings mutely. At his master's request he immediately walked over to where my father was holding Ino hostage and almost faster than I could see, he whipped out a chakra blade and slashed Fugaku's arm with it. Fugaku cried out and dropped both the knife and Ino. Ino stumbled only once before she dashed away, running quickly passed Gaara and through the gate where Lee met her just as she collapsed to her knees in the snow, shaking but not crying.

"You see," Orochimaru said as Fugaku stood behind him and cursed both him and Kubuto while he held his arm to his chest, "I'm a man of my word."

"I wish I could say the same." As soon as Gaara spoke the sand from within his robes shot out from his pant legs, sleeves, and collar and wrapped itself around both Fugaku and Kabuto. Fugaku cried out in fright as he was covered but Kabuto didn't make a sound. Gaara raised a hand in the direction they were standing without removing his eyes from the fallen priest and said, "I think it's time you removed that poison from Tsunade and walked away."

Orochimaru's grin stretched thinner, "And why would I do that?" Gaara started closing his hand and although Kabuto barely reacted beyond a wince, my father screamed. I remembered being on the receiving end of that and glared in their general direction with a complete lack of sympathy. "I thought we were going to be gentlemanly about this," The priest said, his expression unchanged.

"I tend to forget my manners when people important to me are threatened." Gaara replied, his fingers visibly twitching from the effort to keep them from closing further.

"That's a shame, but if you must then go ahead and kill them." That stopped me short and I saw Gaara blink, giving the man a suspicious look. Orochimaru looked right back into his face calmly and then his gaze shifted to Gaara's two hostages. "Why are they still alive? I told you that you could go ahead and kill them," his eyes darted back to Gaara, "Unless they're as worthless to you as bargaining chips as they are to me."

Orochimaru took a couple steps back and crouched down beside Manda, a snake-like tongue darting out to lick a smiling lower lip. "You made the mistake of assuming that either of your hostages matter to me. Fugaku is disposable and Kabuto is happy to die for me." Gaara stood absolutely still, scrutinizing his adversary's face as though looking for some indication he was lying.

Orochimaru's eyes narrowed above the smile. "Allow me to explain how badly you stepped in it, sand demon." In that instance snakes from seemingly everywhere darted out from their hiding places and headed straight for us. Naruto looked prepared to defend us but they completely ignored me and him and swarmed around Lee and Ino. None of them were deterred by the torii gate at all because they weren't demon snakes like Manda, who was suddenly looking very pleased with himself.

Ino was as still as a statue and Lee brought her in close to him as though to shield her with his body. Gaara looked over his shoulder with wide eyes as the snakes crawled all over them. "They're pit vipers; mamushi. Highly poisonous. One order from Manda and I guarantee you will not reach a hospital in time." He said stroking Manda's head.

I had never seen Gaara so tense. Orochimaru couldn't possibly have known that Lee was his lover but in the end it didn't matter. "What do you want?" His voice was resigned, he knew he'd been out maneuvered. Naruto's chakra was an invisible whirlwind of nervous tension. He took a step forward but stopped himself, gaze darting to Lee and Ino and I could see the conflict in his eyes.

Meanwhile Orochimaru had reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black leather belt that looked like a dog collar. "This," he said holding it up, "was originally meant for Sasuke. I didn't want anyone coming to 'rescue' him after Fugaku found him and brought him back to me but I think that it's better suited to you, given the circumstances."

Gaara reached out to take it but instead of letting it go, Orochimaru pulled him closer with it. "Like you, I went after the most vulnerable members of your group but unlike you it wasn't because my power is limited in this cold and wet weather." He said staring Gaara in the face and eventually letting the collar go, "you've lost some of your demonic nature. I wonder if that's what the goddess liked so much… I'll enjoy picking you apart to find out." He stood up confidently, watching as Gaara untied it without removing his glare from Orochimaru's face.

"If I put this on, you'll send the snakes away." Gaara asked, raising the collar up around his neck.

"Gaara don't!" But Gaara didn't acknowledge that he'd heard Lee's scream. Orochimaru nodded slowly to his previous question and Gaara tied it around his own neck. A spell written on the collar immediately became visible over the leather, lit up with Gaara's own chakra. He gasped and almost instantaneously the sand wrapped around both Fugaku and Kabuto crumbled to the snow.

I watched with increasing alarm as Gaara's aura shrunk to almost nothing. The red sparks of the goddess' power were visible now only in the lettering of the spell on the collar, spitting angrily and brighter than his own. He kneeled down slowly and settled himself carefully onto the snow, as though it were a choice of sitting or falling.

Orochimaru nodded to his bound demon, "Let them go, Manda."

Manda hissed angrily, resisting the command. "_No, I require vengeance for what was done to me._" But even as he said it a few snakes were already breaking away from the swarm.

Orochimaru gave Manda a very enigmatic look and he coiled into himself protectively; the rest of the pit vipers darted away quickly as though sensing his distress. "When I make a deal, I keep my end of the bargain." His gaze rose and he locked eyes with me, "that's why when others go back on the agreements they've made with me, they suffer." I frowned in confusion but the sound of retching quickly drew my gaze back to Tsunade who was on hands and knees coughing up more black tar and glaring in Orochimaru's general direction. "Oh good, you're still alive." He said heartlessly and turned back to me, "What do you say Sasuke? Her life for yours."

Naruto's fingers wrapped themselves around my arm and held on tightly but I barely felt it. Tsunade was looking at me, arms trembling to keep herself up and shaking her head. She seemed beyond the ability to speak but her position on the matter was clear.

Unfortunately I didn't think I could live with myself if I honored it.

I started to peal Naruto's fingers off and he got in front of me and grabbed onto my shoulders. "Are you nuts?!" I couldn't look him in the face. All I could do was watch over his shoulder as Tsunade slumped down into the snow, breath shallow and eyes unfocused. "Sasuke!" He shook me and brought my gaze back to him. "I want to save her too but we have to think of something else. …I can't lose you too." He said the last in low desperate tones and I had to close my eyes tightly against the sting because I knew I was about to break the promise I'd made to him.

I reached out, took his face in my hands and kissed him soundly. It only lasted a moment. He pulled away from me and I could see the fear in his eyes. "Release me, Naruto." It was direct, not a polite request but an order. His eyes widened and his hands trembled as they fought against the order but eventually eased away.

"Don't do this. Please." He begged.

I looked over his shoulder at Tsunade and said, "You're not the only one who cares about her…" In the month and a half that I'd known her Tsunade had been more mother to me than my real mother had been in my whole life. "I can't be the reason she dies."

"You won't be. We won't be, we can still do something… come up with something…" He was pleading with me. He knew what I was going to do. He knew that I'd already made up my mind.

I stepped around him and started walking toward the gate. When Naruto reached out to grab my arm again I looked back at him and said, "Don't move."

Naruto froze mid action and I saw the water welling up in his eyes, "Sasuke don't do this!"

It was like getting stabbed in the chest. "Don't move. Stay right here. Don't try to stop me. Don't try to fight the commands." The weight behind the multiple orders hit him like a ton of bricks. He inhaled a sharp trembling breath after every one; each reinforcing the last. The devastation on his face was something I don't think I would ever be able to forget. I felt my own eyes fill with moisture and closed them to keep the sting at bay.

I turned around and walked quickly through the gate, stopping in front of Orochimaru. "I'm here. Now take the poison out of her." The words came out tense and angry, my hands were fists at my sides.

"Of course, and just in time." He looked back to Tsunade who'd lost consciousness by now and the black tar began oozing out of every orifice; her mouth, her nose, her eyes and ears. They even bled out through the pores in her skin, staining the snow black around her.

"Sasuke! Let me go!"

I could barely breathe past the tightness in my chest.

I looked up at the fallen priest and asked the million dollar question, "so what now?"

He considered me with an amused smile. "Well, this is an unfortunate scenario." He looked behind me for a split second before drawing his gaze back to me, "It seems that pursuit of you by your… friend is inevitable but I've already used the only appropriate seal in my possession." He indicated Gaara with his chin. Gaara was still kneeling on the ground, tugging at the collar with fingers that barely had any strength left in them. The seal written on the collar seemed to be exhausting him.

"I guess we'll just have to improvise." He said placing a very unwelcomed hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll still be of use to me." I didn't get the chance to process that. It felt like one second he was standing above me and the next his face was on my shoulder, sharp fangs sinking into my neck.

I screamed. The burning on my neck where his fangs had dug in was worse than when I'd first bound Naruto to me. That's when the realization of what was happening plowed through the pain and I began to fight him; struggling frantically to push him away from me because I could feel it now. There was a channel, a link that connected me to Naruto; a link that his chakra used to flow into me, to heal me and protect me. That channel was falling apart. Orochimaru was breaking the spell that tied me to my demon protector; to Naruto.

But it felt less like breaking the spell than tearing it to pieces. It burned so bad it felt like my whole body was on fire and after a moment I realized that the screams I was hearing weren't just my own.

Eventually my struggles weakened. The channel shattered inside me and it felt like I had shattered with it. I heard the weight of a body crumbling to the ground behind me a second before my eyes rolled into the back of my head and everything went black.

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AN02: Don't kill me! I hate cliffhangers too but there was just no other way this chapter could've ended. Please give me your feedback. It's really appreciated and helps me grow as a writer.


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